“Newcastle will Invest this Summer” – we’ve heard it all before…

For one reason or another Newcastle United only had 13 fit senior players available for their League game against Arsenal last weekend.

And Caretaker head Coach John Carver has in the last few weeks made it abundantly clear that there will be investment this Summer at St. James’ Park, both with players coming in and moving out.

This is what the 50 year old said recently to a local publication:

“We have some good players at this club. I think the fact we have made it public that we are going to invest … without naming any names I’ve seen some of the players they are talking about and I’m quite excited about them.”

Any Newcastle supporter who has seen the club go from one disappointment to another would be excited to hear that kind of statement. However, one would be advised to hold on to their excitement after what happened last season.

In the midst of an appalling run of form last year this is what former manager Alan Pardew told the chronicle in April,

“We have got ourselves into a position, hopefully, in the summer to make some investment that can take this club forward and be stronger.”

And the current Crystal manager went on to say that the fans should be excited about that the quality of players targeted,

“I hope so because the targets we have buoy me.”

However, it would be fair to say that the reinforcements brought in during that following Summer largely failed to “excite”. And the lack of activity in the January window further served to stir tempers on Tyneside.

A total of nine players were brought in, two of which were loaned straight back to Nottingham Forest. While Emannuel Riviere has been nothing short of dire since his Summer arrival from France, Shakhtar Donetsk loanee, Facundo Ferrerya, has been non-existant.

On the bright side, Ayoze Perez has proven to be an excellent purchase, while Remy Cabella and Daryl Janmaat have certainly shown glimpses of exellence, especially over the past few games.

However, the departure of a number of players in paritular – Hatem Ben Arfa, Sylvain Marveaux and Davide Santon – without bringing in replacements has proven to be less that smart business.

Considering the club’s record since 2007, it will not be a surprise to see this fresh statement of intent end as yet another faslse promise, merely empty words. It may also be a ploy to get fans to renew their season tickets which have gone down considerably over the last few years.

The only difference we can see this time is that if the appropriate action is not taken the club will go down like a sinking ship. The only reason why Newcastle have just about survived this season is because of emergence of players like Sammy Ameobi, Mehdi Abeid and Rolado Arrons, whose Premier League experiece up until this season had been limited, to say the least. 

Furthermore, he resurgence of players like Papiss Cisse and Gabriel Obertan has just about kept us mid-table.

The club have been linked with some decent players over the past few weeks, but the Toon fans are a bit too long in the tooth to know what to believe and what not to. One way or another it will be an interesting summer.

Do you think we’ll invest this Summer? And if so, who are we likely to target?