How the summer transfer of a Black Cats player moved goalposts for Mike Ashley

WHEN PICKFORD WENT FOR £30M UNITED OWNER KNEW IT WAS A DIFFERENT GAME

NUFC Editor THE moment it all changed for Mike Ashley was when Everton agreed to meet Sunderland’s staggering £30m valuation of Jordan Pickford.

Until that point, there was a conceivable path forward for the Newcastle United owner – whose willingness to cash in on the Magpies, while genuine, always felt conditional on receiving an offer that he could not refuse.

Talk of Ashley being open to offers is nothing new – raising occasionally in tone and volume during his decade at the helm of Newcastle – but until recently it has lacked substance.

With Newcastle back in the Premier League, Rafa Benitez in charge and a global showcase for his Sports Direct brand, he did not feel like an especially motivated seller.

A short and medium-term plan of using TV cash to fund smart player recruitment could pacify his manager and satisfy his one over-riding requirement as owner of Newcastle: for the club to fund itself.

But the Pickford deal represented the sort of seismic change in the football business that Ashley could not ignore.

It set the tone for a summer when TV deal inflation made Newcastle look like secondclass citizens in the world of Premier League spending – and left Ashley in little doubt that his asset was more vulnerable than ever. For Amanda Staveley wants Newcastle United while Mike Ashley (inset below) doesn’t