Sadly, we knew this was coming. PR offensive after the takeover falls through and Rafa leaves because Mike Ashley is not a genuine seller and has no desire to sell a club he also has no interest in running. The rest is all nonsense, stuff we've heard before.

"We can't be like Man City, Tottenham or Man Utd, we don't have their income and I can't fund it", classic Mike Ashley misdirection attempt. Noone is arguing we should be competing with them, nor that Ashley should be putting his own money in. It's a pure red herring to look at teams at the top and say we can't compete, and he knows it. There are so many issues with Ashley's running of the club and ownership that a comprehensive list would take far too much time to compile, but some of them include:

• Getting a club with on average the 7th highest turnover in the UK (without any European football or cup runs) to be relegated twice, nearly relegated at least 3 more times, and firmly established as a relegation candidate every season.
• Not competing with the likes of Brighton, Wolves, Palace etc, in the transfer market, or on wages paid to players.
• Not allowing good managers like Rafa or Keegan to spend the clubs own money on players they want (and that the club can afford) because Ashley and his cronies think they know better and want to buy different players. Even though they've already relegated the club twice.
• Repeatedly allowing the squad to stagnate, or failing to build momentum when the opportunity is there, by refusing to spend money for numerous successive transfer windows. Then when relegation is on the cards, spending excessive amounts of money under crap managers.
• Being comically bad in the transfer market. Slow to do anything, lowballing at every opportunity, making enemies whenever we can. Not to mention Ashley either going on holiday or suspiciously considering a takeover offer (that he knows he'll reject) whenever a transfer window opens and the club should be moving quick to snap up players before all that's left is the bottom of the barrel.
• The free SD advertising reducing the clubs income. Of course Mike will say "but noone wants to pay that amount", as though he would know since he's never had any intention other than to use NUFC as a SD advert.
• The club shop being a SD operation with SD taking an unknown cut, again reducing the clubs own income. More crocodile tears from Ashley about money won't mask the fact that he's actively reducing the clubs own revenues.
• Asset stripping, e.g. the land outside strawberry place sold to a Mike Ashley shell company and then instantly resold for significant profit.
• Questionable transfer deals as exposed in the Keegan tribunal. Remember, Dennis Wise admitted that the club signed two players against Keegan's wishes, purely as "favors" for two unnamed South American agents. We have no idea just how much money we've spent on similar deals. Plenty of strange ones have happened, and continue to happen. Club is still under investigation by HMRC for unknown payments for some of the Carr signings. £40m for Joelinton, a player with a mediocre record that Rafa didn't want (for that amount), yet we've been linked to him since January 2019 when news broke we were about to sign him. Who exactly at the club wanted him signed, and why?
• Joke "executives" who should be nowhere near the club, any PL club, nor running a £350m business.
• Refusing to improve the clubs training facilities which are outdated, making zero improvements to the stadium beyond literally a lick of paint and the addition of a bore hole nearly a decade ago.
• Running PR campaigns against managers (especially Rafa) and even fans. Use a PR firm (Keith Bishop Associates) to pay a bunch of bottom feeding pundits and ex-pros like Keys, Ferdinand, Souness, etc, to bad mouth Rafa. Also has actively run campaigns whenever fan unrest is high enough for boycott/protests to start.

Unfortunately a bunch of our fans will accept all of what this leech is saying at face value and continue going to matches. Sports Direct FC is all this club is now.