'Ridiculous': Paul Mitchell's blame-shifting interview has not gone over well with Simon Jordan

 · September 5 2024, 18:30
'Ridiculous': Paul Mitchell's blame-shifting interview has not gone over well with Simon Jordan
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If anybody outside of Newcastle United was going to have something to say about Paul Mitchell's press conference on Wednesday it was bound to be Simon Jordan.

The former Crystal Palace owner and now TalkSPORT mouthpiece has always got an opinion and it's 50/50 as to whether or not it will be a sensible one.

Quite often I find that Jordan speaks sense, even when I don't necessarily like what he's saying, but there are other times when he just seems to be speaking for the sake of hearing his own voice, and this strikes me as one of those moments.

He and part-man-part-foghorn Jim White were talking about Paul Mitchell distancing himself from the poor transfer decisions this summer by saying that he walked into a pre-defined strategy that wasn't fit for purpose but took a back seat as it was too far down the line to change it.

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Simon Jordan claimed that what Mitchell said was 'bloody stupid'

Last night when the embargo lifted we read through the various quotes put out by several outlets and we were initially pretty harsh on Mitchell for not taking responsibility, but the more we read the more we thought he actually had a good point.

There was no benefit of the doubt from Simon Jordan, however, who has torn into Mitchell for blaming the existing strategy.

“I don’t know why he would say ‘it’s difficult coming into a predefined strategy’ because if it’s difficult then don’t come into it.

“I’m assuming you were recruited because you met the requirements of a predefined strategy. Otherwise, why would they recruit you?

“Ultimately, once you’re in that strategy you can start to finesse and look at the way things can evolve as you’re trying to evolve the football club. So I think that’s a bloody stupid thing to say.

“And we also understand that most football clubs want predefined strategies. You want to be able to have continuity. You want to be able to be in a situation where senior appointments can leave and the strategy of the football club does not change with the weather based upon the personality that is sitting in the dugout or sitting in an influential position.

“So I think that’s a ridiculous thing to say in the first place.”
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There is a huge flaw in Simon Jordan's logic

Jordan's assumption that he was given the role because he fits the pre-defined strategy is a flawed one.

That previous strategy was set up by people who are no longer at the club, and it was a strategy that saw Newcastle scrapping to comply with PSR. It obviously, as Mitchell said himself, wasn't fit for purpose.

He was given the role to shake up that strategy and implement a new one, something that he couldn't exactly do mid-window and something that won't happen magically overnight, it's going to take time.

While the idea of having a framework that stays the same even when key staff members are changed is a good one, it's only good if the framework they're all working to is solid, and the one Newcastle had before Mitchell arrived, obviously wasn't as the club was failing when it came to PSR.

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