"Eventually, you will bring to the club what it has been crying out for. Stability is a big thing for us. We started off with Graham (Carr) and he is a major factor for us. We went through the managers and the coaches, giving them long-term deals, and fundamentally that’s what we want to do.

"You can work through our backroom team, from masseur all the way through, and they all have stability. In reality, we do not work like other football clubs. 

"If other clubs bring in a new manager then there are lots of staff changes. When Alan came here, all of the backroom staff were told their jobs were safe. We mean that. It brings a different atmosphere to a club. People then think ‘hang on, they want stability here.’

"Alan, JC, Stoney, Peter Beardsley – they are all part and parcel of planning for the years to come. We do not work any other way. We do not make knee-jerk decisions – we react but we do not knee-jerk. 

"You might think we have had a terrible first half of the season and people were speculating on the manager. Coming from a gambling background, I saw the odds on Alan as the next manager to be fired go from 12-1 then to 1-5 on and then I am getting calls.

"Where would that come from? I phoned Mike and asked him if he had heard and he started laughing. He said, ‘They are mad, they do not get us.’

"That is what it is, when things are bad we are actually stronger as people and as a team. We are criticised on blogs and forums. 

"However, you saw the manager’s face against Chelsea and also Aston Villa, you saw what that meant to him – and maybe that was a bigger game for him. The crowd were fantastic, our fans were incredible. The thing is we stay strong.

"Those eight-year deals will continue. We would like to have everybody in place for as long as possible."

NUFC's immediate priorities:

"If we are relegated we’ll have put ourselves back three or four years. That’s not what the fans want. Do they want to go to Barnsley again? No, so we have to concentrate on the Premier League.

"We can’t jeopardise our position. It’s like Europe, we weren’t prepared for Europe so soon.

"It is a very difficult competition for us. Even now we have to concentrate on the Premier League. In reality, this year we aren’t as ready for it as we’d like to be. Our priority is the league.

"Next year we will have more depth and we will have a better foundation. Then we can go for everything, then it’s different. Once this squad gels, this squad is capable of achieving great things in a very difficult league.

"If we have this squad and we can add the depth to it, we can give a run to anybody. I really think that, but do I think we’re really ready to be in Europe? Talking as somebody who runs this part of the business, we just haven’t got enough depth yet.

"The Premier League is where we have to be. Let’s concentrate on that. That’s what we have to build on. We are building."

Summer 2012 transfer activity:

"I think it was a massive plus to keep our star names. We do not give ourselves much credit because that is not what we think we should be doing. For us it is a big plus to keep those players. 

"When you look back, and we always do, Mike and I always look at where we are as a business – but did we make a mistake in the summer? I think we did.

"We were so fundamentally tight on the model maybe we should have taken more of a risk in the summer. I do not think it is the cost. We just thought we had enough depth and that is where we went wrong. We just did not give ourselves enough slack.

"There have been three stages to the season. If we go back to the summer, we had a fantastic season last year, it was way above our expectations. We worked really hard to keep our players.

"We had interest and pressure from agents and clubs wanting to buy some of our players. People perhaps do not realise it can be a difficult task to retain them all. We kept them and kept them happy. We brought Vurnon Anita, who I think is going to be a star.

"Then we had the horrendous injury list – and you cannot have a working model that is set up to withstand such a horrendous injury list. So we found ourselves in a worse position than we expected. We had too many top players out for too long."

January 2013 transfer activity:

"Am I proud we are top spenders in the window? No, success in the window is not about the amount you spend, it is the quality and value you bring in.

"Looking at our working model, I had planned for two of those signings to arrive in the summer. We missed out on two others by the way. The other two would have been on top of the five we brought in. They were not next, they would have been on top.

"We just had to bring things forward. Normally we would not do that. I spoke to Graham Carr and he said in football you will not see this again. He felt what was happening with our squad was unprecedented as far as injuries were concerned.

"We felt we had enough because we had finished fifth with the squad we had and we had added to it. We keep rolling, so the new players we have now, two of those deals were lined up for the summer (Gouffran and Sissoko). 

"It is difficult, but we looked at the current situation and we had to make changes to bring things forward. So we can bring it forward sometimes if we need to. In November we had our targets, we just had to think how soon we were going to bring them in. They did not just crop up in November, we identified them a long time ago. 

"If you look at Sissoko, Graham’s first report was from 2010. Graham knew about him from when he was 18 - we follow players for years. It is a question of bringing things forward quicker than we had planned to sometimes, like we did in January. 

"This club's finances are strong and we have a very strong owner behind it, so we can bring it forward sometimes if we need to."

French-focused transfer policy:

"At the end of the day it is a market which excites us. We have to explore other markets, though, which we do. We are still going to other markets. We keep an eye on the UK market too. British players are very expensive, which is a factor for us.

"What is fantastic about our fanbase and Newcastle is they are embracing it (the French influx). Football is entertainment, it is passion. They know we have found a niche and they have bought into that.

"It is getting harder for us in France. One president of a club said: ‘What are you doing with all the French players?’ I said: ‘Eventually the national team will just send their plane to Newcastle and collect them from here!’He laughed – while he was twisting my arm for more money!”

Loic Remy:

"We put a lot of work into that deal. It is like everything else, we do not really want to break our policies. If you do not want to come here and play then it is your choice.

"He made the decision, so there you go. What can I say? We put our work in, we lost it and we moved on. We did it before with (Modibo) Maiga. We put the work in, we move on – it is what it is.

"Let’s not forget Loic is a very good player. Unfortunately he is now injured, but he has had a season of injuries. Sometimes you have to take that risk because you might not get value in a player. They can rejuvenate themselves when they come here.

"I would not criticise what QPR have done. I would say they have good people behind it and they are giving themselves a chance. The same thing could be said at Villa, it is different for them, they are taking a gamble on the opposite side.

"They are saying ‘We have a decent squad, can they keep us up?’ That is a gamble too. Only a week ago, we were three points away from those guys. Are Mike and I taking a gamble by bringing everything forward? No, it is what we felt we needed to do.

"I would not want to criticise the passion QPR owner Tony Fernandez has, he is very communicative and has a flair and understanding of what the fans want and what he wants for the good of the club.

"I listened to Phil Beard and Tony Fernandes. You take out what you want from what you read in the press. They played down Chris Samba, but if we were in a similar position?

"Tony is a good guy and a good owner and has passion for his club. If Mike and I were in that position we may sit back and say: ‘Do we need two players to push us away from relegation?’

"We might have taken the gamble too, but not irresponsibly. Tony is not being irresponsible. He is giving himself and his club a chance. If he did not do anything then he would be criticised too.”

Demba Ba:

"He was offered a decent deal, in many eyes it would be a great deal, but it is what he wants. He is 28 and felt he had three or four years left and that is what he wants to do. I wish him well. You have to understand if you go back to the basics of the deal….we took a chance on Demba and Demba took a chance on us. It sounds like a song from Abba, the Abba deal! 

"We sat down with his representatives and discussed his move from Hoffenheim to West Ham to Newcastle. However, there was that element for us which was his condition. 

"One thing the guy could do is score goals. We needed goals and it was a deal we could do. We structured the deal in such a way it gave him an opportunity to move and us an opportunity to have the gamble to see if he could perform for us and stay fit.

"The guy never missed a day of training and played in every game he was asked to play. What more can you ask? People criticise us for the clause, but it was part of the gamble for Demba as well. Did he want to structure himself in a way where he would not be able to achieve what he wanted to achieve? Every player has that to consider.

"Maybe he wanted to prove himself, but for us I have no regrets on the Demba deal or Demba leaving. We have to move forward. With Demba we had him for 18 months and he scored 29 league goals. He went out of the cub his way, and we have replaced him."

Europa League revamp:

"They need to change the competition for sure. The competition has too many games and very little prize money. Every Premier League club which has been in it has suffered - their season suffered dramatically. You need a lot of depth to your squad to cope. 

"If you are in the Champions League, then it is different - you can say that because of prize money. This gives me so much, I can buy more players because it does not impact on my finances.

"The Europa League needs fewer games - that is really the way I see it. The competition needs to be shaved down and reshaped. The incentives need to be different. The Champions League is worth around 44.3m if you win it, but the Europa League is 8m if you win it."