Spineless Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias are running Newcastle into the ground

By Brian McNally

Published 11:39 28/08/09

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The bare-faced cheek of Newcastle United managing director Derek Llambias and his boss Mike Ashley regularly attracts unflattering comparisons on Tyneside with Peckham brothers Del Boy and Rodney.

More front than Brighton is an expression coined by the Toon Army long before the Tyneside comedy double act's little wager that ended with Llambias cavorting around St. James' Park in his birthday suit during a private party.

Once they were branded as "Cockney Mafia"- geographically inaccurate I should point out - by protesting Geordie fans in the wake of Kevin Keegan's departure in September 2008 it seemed their days on Tyneside were decidedly numbered.

But, incredibly, almost a year on from Keegan's departure two of the most despised football men in British football still own and run Newcastle United.

That, despite, twice putting the club up for sale, isolating Geordie legends Keegan and Alan Shearer, selling a raft of star players including fans' hero Shay Given, making hundreds of staff redundant, and, in the process,suffering scathing and unrelenting criticism over the course of the most depressing 12 months in Newcastle's 117-year history.

Survival in this hostile climate is possibly the most noteworthy feat of their troubled time at St. James' Park.

A play lampooning the Ashley-Llambias axis "You Couldn't Make It Up" perfectly captured the mood of farcical chaos that surrounds the two men.

In trying to sell the club they have issued more deadlines than a 24-hour rolling news channel and broken every one of them.

They have made public statements that don't even stand up to the flimsiest of examinations. Take the strange case of the Shearer snub. At the end of last season Llambias said: "We want him to be the manager 110%," while Ashley insisted that making Shearer interim manager was his "best decision."

They then completely ignored both Shearer and their previous statements to leave the club in limbo.

Then there is the mystery of the disappearing buyers. Ashley and co are still unable to find a purchaser for the club, despite Llambias publicly claiming in July that "more than two" bidders had matched the £100 million asking price.

So if Llambias' claim was correct seven weeks ago they there had at least three buyers-where are they now?

And why is he still asking £100m after selling nearly £25m worth of stock in the shape of Oba Martins, Sebastien Bassong, Damien Duff and Habib Beye?

We now find that Newcastle have been talking to Tyneside businessman Barry Moat, Graham Roberts Fanbase 410 outfit and Geoff Sheard, whose attempts to buy Sheffield Wednesday came to naught last season, none of whom had the necessary funds ready available.

A proud club has been made a laughing stock by a clueless, spineless administration that seems incapable of getting the simplest decision right or providing fans with even the most basic level of communication.

It saddens me that a club with such passionate and loyal supporters is run with an ineptitude that would be embarrassing even at Sunday League level. The Toon army deserve far better.

Even Ashley has admitted to a catalogue of basic errors that painfully illustrate that both he and Llambias don't have a clue how to run a professional football club.

Ashley may know how to pile his sports goods high and sell them cheaply, while Llambias can spin a roulette wheel and run a casino.

But the horrendous mess they have made of "running" Newcastle United over the last two years has plummeted the club into an unparallelled decline.

Never in all my time in football I have never encountered a club so chaotically and pathetically run as Ashley's Newcastle United.

Is it any wonder that potential buyers question a club that is put up for sale by email, where the owner swigs beer in the stands and challenges his MD to streak around an empty stadium.

The only streak the Toon Army are dreaming of now, apart from a winning one, is the sight of a pair of rather portly backsides disappearing over the Tyne Bridge never to be seen again in Geordieland.

It can't happen soon enough for me and 50,000 disenchanted Geordies.

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