Charnley steps up as Jabba cashes out

So the new man filling the managing director shoes vacated last June by Derek Llambias isn't new at all - it's former club secretary Lee Charnley. He marked his appointment with the release of a lengthy mission statement that largely reiterated what was communicated in the most recent Fans' Forum. The Ronny Gill's Neil Cameron has analysed it closely and written a sharp critique, so I won't dwell on it for too long except to flag up one particularly staggering admission: "We don’t look at transfer windows in isolation, but rather as a full trading year, and our intention for the first team is to sign one or two players per year to strengthen the squad."

It's a marker of the club hierarchy's delusions if they genuinely believe that one or two signings a year would be sufficient to ensure progress. As underlined by our last three matches, the brutal truth is that the squad needs a significant overhaul in the summer - perhaps four or five players in several different areas, and that's before we even start talking about the possible sales of the likes of Tim Krul and Mathieu Debuchy. A couple of additions would be likely to see us neither advance nor stand still but regress in relation to all those around us. It's a policy that's very hard to square with the claim that "our primary focus will remain the Premier League", given that it would be a recipe for relegation to the Championship...

Charnley's statement pours more than a bucket of cold water on any hopes we might have had that the £200m Jabba has just pocketed from the unexpected sale of Sports Direct shares might be put towards bankrolling a serious summer spending spree. Fat Fred (remember him?) has crawled out from under his rock to claim that he would "not be surprised" if Jabba was actually gearing up to cash out of the club too - and to hint at a desire to resume control should Jabba choose to sell up. You know things are grim if that prospect looks like salvation of sorts. Better the devil you used to know than the devil you've had to put up with for the last seven years?