"99.9 per cent of Newcastle United fans will never be Mike Ashley the businessman. Whatever you think of him as a football man he has got to be a very intelligent businessman to do what he has done in business. I'm not necessarily saying they should embrace him but I can think of a lot worse owners than Mike Ashley owning your football club. Take, for instance, Alan Pardew. He could have sacked Alan Pardew three or four times during that really rocky period but he stuck by him. In the end, when Alan had an opportunity to slip out of there he didn't wait for another bad spell where Mike might lose patience and sack him, he joined another club.
"They might be worse under a new owner. If he sells the club at the price he wants, I am just hoping the new owner has very deep pockets to improve the squad because it does need badly improving. They played well last night and they deserved to win against an unusually limp Burnley team. Over the past 10 or 15 years the recruitment has been terrible. It is not all about money. Some of the players that have come in haven't deserved to wear that black and white shirt."