Ashley Has Paid For Mistakes But Has Hughton To Thank
He is still on the rotund side, he has still got blood on his hands - metaphorically speaking - after relegation last season and he is still a Cockney in the loosest sense of the word, but is Mike Ashley still a hate figure on Tyneside?
I doubt Newcastle United's owner would win any popularity contests and I doubt very much whether he would be welcome in any Bigg Market drinking establishments anytime soon, but has outright hostility now given away to begrudging acceptance?
It says much about the success of Newcastle's season that, at the very least, Ashley's presence at St James' Park no longer tops the agenda.
There is still plenty of opposition to him. The wounds inflicted were too deep to be forgotten - Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer are too beloved for that.
The mistakes of the past have left a nasty scar, but at the same time, people are getting on with their lives and getting on with supporting a football club, regardless of who is in the director's box.
There is also no doubt Ashley's reputation has been improved by the behaviour of others. Just ask the fans of Portsmouth, Southampton, Manchester United, Liverpool, Cardiff, Southend and Luton Town to talk about the men who have run their clubs into the ground and in some cases, to even more distressing depths of despair.
Ashley has put his own money in this season - more than £20m before Christmas - which is at least shows a willingness to pay for the mistakes he made over the previous two years.
Newcastle signed players in January, and while this may have only have been the money still owed from the sale of Shay Given and Charles N'Zogbia to Man City and Wigan last year, it was still made available to Chris Hughton.
Should Newcastle go up, he may well have to spend some of his own money again because the first team squad - while arguably too good for the Championship - will need a lot of strengthening to succeed in the Premier League.
Television revenue will provide some of the necessary transfer funds, but more may well be needed and that is when Ashley's actions will be scrutinised intensely again.
Of course, he doesn't have to put his hand in his own pocket,. He has always wanted to run the club as a business, living within its means, not a charity, but that doesn't mean people won't expect him to.
If Newcastle are back in the Championship in 2012 Ashley will be back at square one, that's just the nature of the football beast he decided to flirt with.
The real credit for Ashley's improved situation - if you can call it that - goes to Chris Hughton and the players.
There is nothing like success on the pitch to divert attention away from what happens off it and it's difficult to be critical of the league leaders, no matter what division they are in.
As I've said all season, Newcastle can only beat what is put in front of them and, more often than not, they have done precisely that in the Championship.
After a little post-Christmas wobble, Newcastle have re-extended their lead at the top of the table to five points (and six to third) with a game in hand.
The away form remains a chink in their armour - no wins on the road since the start of December - but their destiny is in their own hands and whatever slip ups there have been, there have been equally damaging ones for WBA and Nottingham Forest.
So far so good and with the finishing straight around the next corner promotion is Newcastle's to throw away....
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Luke Edwards - is Chief Sports Writer of The Journal and uses his blog to give a unique and entertaining insight into events at Newcastle United and Sunderland.
dont forget mike ashley admitted to lying and misleading newcastle supporters in the keegan i nquiry and a recent poll had 96% against him.I wouldnt belive him on this i loaned the club 25M is this the same man that made up debts just before transfer windows just so allardyce and keegan could not spend anything and why blame freddy shepherd for his crass ideaocy.
I look at the plight of the likes of Portsmouth and think if it wasn't for Mike Ashley we could be in real trouble financially. With hindsight he will probably prove to be the best thing to happen to NUFC for decades. Most wont admit it but appointing Hughton has proved to be a very astute decision. Lets hope he keeps on getting these decisions right!
It will still be in the interests of everybody if Ashley sells the club.
The man has burned too many bridges at Newcastle and will never be trusted ever again.
If he gets the opportunity to recoup most of his outlay for the club he should take it thee first chance he gets. If Newcastle fail miserably again under Ashley he will not find the massive support there anymore and this alone will send the value of the club plummeting.
Get out while the goings good Mike!
This is a really interesting piece Luke, fair and balanced, as we have come to expect from you. Basically, Ashley has made a complete mess of things but he has stayed around and is trying to fix them, best way he can. I think he was really badly advised at the start with that whole management structure thing which didn't give the manager complete control of transfers and the appointment of Wise was perhaps the biggest of all given the nature of the man and the clash with Keegan. However, the club is debt free thanks to Ashley - we were more than £110m in debt when he bought the club - and he has put money in again this season. Whether he wants it back, we don't know, but look at what has happened at Portsmouth and they have less debt than Newcastle. I will never like the guy as such, but as you say Luke, begrudging acceptance and that's a big improvement on six months ago.
Yes Luke a point or two well put. It does look like this has been part of MA plans, take the club down and start again. if we had stayed up then i'm sure he'd say fine but he wasn't going to invest in a club that was basically arleady over invested. The dead wood has gone and theres still 40K + fans turning up to pay the electric bill and the macums are still heading to the Metro Center to buy their cheap tracky bottoms from Sports Direct. Would he have stayed around to sort the mess out if he had a good offer for the club, i don't think so, so i'm not giving him credit for the repair and upkeep of his own house. Is CH a great desision or a cheap alternative, i would say the later. I would say its been the mentality of the players and fans that have put us where we are. and I think they deserve the credit for that.
Nobody can deny the cracking job that CH has done this season at Newcastle however I for one cannot forgive the Fatman for where we are today. It's all well and good paying off club debts but look at Man Utd, Real Madrid etc. They have massive debts however they win trophies and that's what counts.The sooner Ashley sells up the better - hopefully a suitable buyer will come in in May. We can all live in hope.
Whilst still villified in many a Friday night chat in the local, in the cold light of day is Mike Ashley the worst thing to ever happen to Newcastle United? Whilst I am no Ashley fan, when someone sits down to update the history of NUFC - I don't think he will be! Despite the pain of relegation, dropping out of the top tier made a man (who,whatever you may think of him,has to be sort of admired for making himself incredibly rich by most peoples standards trading in sportswear of a quality that you can buy any weekend on any market stall across the UK)look with eyes not clouded by sentiment at an enterprise that had been failing for years, trading on former and promised but undelivered glories. Overloaded with overpaid, overpriced average players who would not have signed for Newcastle were it not for the large financial carrots dangled in front of them by previous regimes (Mr Owen time for you to take a bow here, but you are by no means alone)However painful the experience is we will emerge from the Ashley years as a leaner meaner machine with a much more stable financial bed to lie in, and if the club whoever may be the owners if MA decides to walk away continues to ensure there is no return to the type of cheque book success seeking exploits that have taken clubs like Portsmouth, Leeds and if rumours are to be believed NUFC to the brink of extinction then progress will inevitably follow.With the exception of clubs where money is no object or those who continually flirt with financial disaster, the days of paying £30m+ for no better than average players and wages of £100k+ per week have gone-circumstances have dictated that they must.Whilst he may have been the cheaper alternative, Ashley needs to be commended in sticking with Chris Hughton amidst the clamour for a big name manager, OK maybe not the most dynamic on camera and perhaps he will be found out in the top tier, but whatever fans may think of him he has quietly gone about restoring some pride in pulling on a black and white shirt and for the most part extracted decent performances from players who if we are honest no one would class as world beaters. We sit top of the Championship, 6 points clear of the playoff places, looking like we might go a whole season unbeaten at home without ever taking any team apart (including Cardiff)and as I have said many times this season again in Friday night chats in the local-it is points not performances that get you promoted.We need to take off the rose coloured specs and stop harking back to the days of "the entertainers" those times have gone and let NUFC get on with its rumoured 5 year plan to be back challenging for Europe within that timeframe,make no mistake when promotion is assured the hard work will begin because we have a number of players who can turn out top quality performances in the Championship but are either not good enough or past their sell by date as far as the top tier is concerned.If in 5 years time Newcastle United are indeed challeging the top 6 and a place in Europe maybe the pain that has been felt throughout the club (not just on the field) in the last 12 months or so will just about have been worth it, and people will indeed look back and think that the Ashley years maybe weren't the worst thing that ever happened.
Luke, I think that this piece is both insightful and timely. Ashley’s attitude towards NUFCs fans and favoured sons has been crass, dishonest and at times just stupid. On the flip-side, his actions at the time he bought the club, and again more recently have gone down well. All of these things are the actions of a man who is used to getting his own way, AND knows the value of money. He had a steep learning curve, and made a complete mess of his running of our club. Now, he will do whatever makes best sense in terms of protecting the investments he has already made, and then realising a profit (or minimising his loss) at a time which looks best to him. We’ll never know how serious he has been at selling the club up to now, and the eventual sale may come as a “bolt from the blue” when it comes. What we have now is the same as we had at the start – a man who will put his own interests ahead of the club’s in the long term. In the short term, those interests are well aligned. That means that we have every chance of returning to the Premiership this season, but we can have no idea what the man will do if & when we achieve promotion.
In summary, he may not be a hate figure now – because of on-field success, but that doesn’t mean he can ever be trusted.