Relegation Clause is gonna spunk it, he wants his dosh now not May, and her to fund the January window.
I can see this falling apart at the last minute. By all accounts Ashley is known to be an awkward negotiator that can be prone to throwing a curve ball into the mix at the last minute and Staveley seems to want to buy the club but not be responsible if it gets relegated after she's paid her deposit. Don't be surprised if this falls over, Rafa leaves, we sell our best players and get relegated.
I think the takeover will be finalised Monday of next week. £250m up front, additional £50m if we stay up, £60m injected on top of £30m to spend in January, is my guess.
Opinion based on the stuff I heard at the back end of the week. I'm pretty sure it's actually in the hands of lawyers, Ashley/Staveley have already agreed the basics it's the structure of the terms being ironed out. They wanted it announced Weds, as per Rafa's comments, but as they missed that deadline and with two away matches there's no urgency to get it tied up; might well be what I hear is right and they want to coincide it with a home match so I'd imagine they want it done and announced by Xmas (pending FA approval) ahead of - ironically - the Moneybags City match.
My guess is that Ashley suddenly inserts a Greggs pastie clause, whereby Staveley has to supply him with as many steak bakes as he can eat if we stay up. She cannot make the figures stack up and she pulls out. Rafa is given every penny of transfer funds that he can generate in January, which is absolutely **** all because all of our unwanted players are so **** that nobody else wants them either. We are bottom of the league by February and relegated by March. Rafa walks and JFK is brought back for a 3rd stint because he still owes us two months holiday pay from last time he was here. The club's value plummets and Ashley uses us to cover a bet in a low stakes poker game that he is involved in with high rolling mackem in a Milan casino. He loses and we become the only football league club that's owner fails the fit and proper persons test due to his ability to count to 12 using all of his fingers only once and his outstanding conviction for ****ting on back seat of the Pennywell shuttle bus. That's what I fully expect to happen.
Think about this though. £250m for a Championship club. Nobody in their right mind would pay that. If I were thinking of buying the club, given the current position, playing staff and likelihood of relegation, I'd just wait until the end of the season. If they are still a Premier League club then pay the £300m, or even a bit more than that.
I genuinely think it has already happened, as it were. GLS - don't listen to dicks like Merson, it wouldn't take more than £40-50m to make us safe. If the shackles are removed, we could comfortably take some squad players from the top clubs - Mkhitaryan, Shaw, Batshuayi, Sturridge, Walcott. We'll have far more resource than most of the rivals in Jan and a couple of wins gets you mid-table, because it's a crazy season.
Just imagine it, Ashley takes his money after effectively investing nothing in this club. He has had 10 years of free advertising, not always in the PL but the exposure for Sports Direct has been immense, especially when you consider that all publicity, even bad, is good. He walks away, raises two fingers and wishes us all a very happy relegation. Hopefully Staveley and PCP haven’t bought the club to see it stagnate and will provide sensible long term funding. First off to see us safe and maintain PL status this season and then slowly build for a better and more successful future. I don’t expect we will ever do a Man City but hopefully enough that we can at least compete within the PL and not always be the snotty nosed kid with his face pushed against the sweetshop window.
It will be nice to have the ownership/management in who make the right decisions for once instead of driving us all mad with poor decisions that we can spot a mile off.
