Honestly the constant sniping at Mike Ashley is doing us no favours whatsoever. This whole big conspiracy people have about him not really wanting to sell the club looks like bullshit to me. I think he'd jump at the chance. However he will want well paid for it. He is the owner of a PL football club, with a large fanbase, with good season ticket sales year on year, a top ground, good training facilities and youth facilities that have been invested in and a well known highly regarded manager. I know we are not state of the art in everything and the value of everything disappears with relegation but while we remain a PL club the value is high. He knows that and so do prospective buyers. I doubt he had much interest in selling when we were in the championship. I can't understand anyone who thinks he would? There is debt which he has serviced but its not some stick to beat us with. Its something a prospective buy needs to take care of. Lets face it him being open about it helps us a whole lot more than the previous incumbents burying it and doing Ashley over because of his compulsive nature. At least if someone does buy the club they know if they can really afford to do what is necessary. Its just purely a business transaction from his point of view. Give him what he values his asset at and he will sell it. Don't and he won't.
Now that the TV rights money situation has been resolved and once our PL status is guaranteed (fingers crossed), I think the whole sale issue will regain momentum - too many unknowns for either side in Jan for it to be able to move forward without one side or the other taking what the clearly saw as being unacceptable risks
While it was very disappointing to throw away a 2 goal lead I can't help thinking back to those seemingly endless seasons after the 5th place one where we might as well not have turned up away from home. With the exception of against the top sides I always feel that we have a chance of at least a point away from home now. Even think we might get something (apart from hammered) this weekend as well.
Meant in traditional terms. We're the only PL club that doesn't owe money to a bank. I think he included it in his valuation. The club itself isn't worth a lot more than £180m-£200m, but the debt factored in drives the asking price to £300m. He's not going to sell for £300m and still be owed the money. No different to any other club, I suppose. It's not like Sunderland have a queue of buyers at a price of £0. Because the real price is around £70m and counting. I agree with Jak - I think this Summer, if/once we're safe, there'll be considerable interest in the club.
