Only one way forward for Toon and its fans... splash the cash and get rid of Ash
YOU have to treat much of what Mike Ashley says with scorn and scepticism.
Talks with potential new owners of Newcastle United might indeed, like he says, be at an advanced stage.
But the tycoon might just be sending out a message to other prospective bidders: ‘Yes, we have someone who is interested but we’re still open to offers’.
We’re entering one of the most highprofile periods of the season, don’t forget, with football coming very much into focus over the holiday period.
People who don’t normally have time to sit down and watch a full game might just find themselves slumped in front of the fireplace after a couple of festive sherries and get engrossed in a full 90 minutes.
And if they’ve £300million down the back of the sofa they could find themselves thinking: ‘You know what, I’ll have some of that’.
Until the day Ashley announces he has sold Newcastle United Football Club and the ink is dry on the contracts, then I’ll be taking most of what he says with a pinch of salt.
What I do know for certain, however, is that the club does need new ownership. Some people will tell Newcastle fans to be careful what they wish for but I’d disagree.
The Geordies have had their fill of Ashley. They want him gone. He was never that popular to start with and that popularity has nosedived.
When you peel away the layers of the Ashley onion you realise it’s time to throw it in the bin and start again.
The caveat, of course, is that if you get a Massimo Cellino, as Leeds did, then my words would look fairly stupid.
Hearts
But it’s a huge club and the right buyer has to be out there.
Whoever does come in for Newcastle, whether it’s now or in the future, then the onus must be on the supporters’ groups, the former players, and the media to scrutinise them properly and ask all the right questions.
I’m a huge believer in that.
The Premier League’s fit-andproper-person test only goes so far but in a big, one- club city like Newcastle, those with the club in their hearts can take it much further.
If they don’t do that and, five years down the line there’s something wrong, then the responsibility is on them, it happened on their watch.
All too often fans can get very excited when a new owner arrives and flashes a pound, dollar or dirham.
But we’ve had enough bad examples now to know things aren’t always as they seem.
We all know Ashley isn’t short of a bob or two, yet history will treat him as the guy who came in and left Newcastle not far off how he found it.
He put money in, took money out, they’ve gone down and come back up. It has been middling. There’s been no great success and no great catastrophe for several hundred million pounds.
As you’ll read elsewhere on this page, there are times when clubs must make bold statements.
But when someone does buy Newcastle, that is the last thing they should do.
They just need to come in with a five-year plan, say they want to keep their manager Rafa Benitez, and give him significant, though not endless, resources to build a squad that by the end of that period will be challenging for Europe.
Bridges
The last thing they should be saying is: “We’ll take this club back to where they belong at the top of the table and in the Champions League,” because that just gets people giddy and leads to disappointment.
If the new owners quietly rebuild the bridges Ashley has burned down, then they will soon have the Toon Army eating out of their hands.
And together they can all start to move forward in a harmony that disappeared long ago under the current regime.