The Toon boss did everything to try and get Ashley to pay the extra bucks to sign a central defender and left-back.
Alan Pardew: "We have a long-term plan in place at Newcastle which means that we don't spend what we don't have.
"The hope is that if the Financial Fair Play rules are fairly applied we will have a sound foundation in place on which to challenge all the other clubs.
"There is no doubt that until those rules are in place, we can't compete with what the Champions League clubs are spending, and that increases the size of our challenge.
"But we have slowly built a squad that finished fifth last season and the key for me was retaining all our top players this summer.
"We can't match what Chelsea and the others outlay on players but if we can keep those top players and sign and bring through good youngsters, we will be in a good place.
"Investment does not always guarantee you are going to improve the team. We have seen that down the years."
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