The mysterious Mr. Mike Ashley

He looks as though he's just had Alan Shearer's daughter

Dangerously for Ashley, Hughton commanded the loyalty of the players; the mutinous spirit threatened to boil over as the Newcastle players rallied round him. Winger Jonas Gutierrez’s show of solidarity on Twitter was heart-rending: ‘Thank you Chris Hughton for believing in us when nobody believed in us.’ Right-back Danny Simpson simply tweeted ‘Shocked’. However, after having collected his thoughts, he did follow this up with ‘I’m just watchin Home Alone 2’. Defender Sol Campbell, meanwhile, opined that ‘This will hit the players hard...The players admired him and liked him and won’t be happy now he’s gone like this. It makes no sense’. Presumably, Campbell was still mulling over this ethical quandary when he rather absent-mindedly let a long ball hit him on the back, setting up Liverpool’s only goal in Newcastle’s first game post-Hughton on Saturday.

So to the villain of the piece: Mike Ashley. What makes a man think that upsetting the players and fans so spectacularly is worthwhile? It’s a tricky question due to Ashley’s enigmatic, media-shy nature. Communication with the club’s supporters is conducted only via official statements, and we only get to see him in public when he’s at matches wearing the Newcastle shirt, usually looking like a bloated nine year old who didn’t get what he wanted for Christmas. Unfortunately, the presence of that most prodigious of sponsors, Northern Rock, stretched across his chest seems something of an irony for a man who to many Newcastle fans is part of a Southern ‘Cockney mafia’ and has hardly provided the bedrock of stability needed at the club.

Ashley’s juvenile arrogance can hardly have been kept in check by his business career. Leaving school aged 16, a self-made man, Mike Ashley has learnt to have a high opinion of his own instincts, and he revels in his position as a perennial outsider. He is after all the clothing magnate responsible for bringing appallingly low-priced sportswear to the masses with Sports Direct to the ire of industry rivals, and he’s reported to own large stakes in competitors JD Sports and JJB Sports, just because he ‘likes to park his tanks on other peoples’ lawns’. Add the fact that he’s not afraid of the odd punt, having lost the small matter of £129 million betting on the share price of HSBC in 2008, and we can see that his aggressive, risky, interventionist style is hardly conducive to the unassuming support that football managers need from club owners. Let’s hope that new manager Alan Pardew gets a chance to settle down before Ashley starts getting an itchy trigger finger again.

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