He may be public enemy number one on Tyneside at the moment, but one thing you can definitely say about Mike Ashley is that he's not afraid to make unpopular decisions.First of all he committed what many in the city saw as the ultimate sin when he forced Kevin Keegan out of Newcastle United. King Kev made it painfully clear that he would not work at a club which bought and sold players without his say-so. During all those crisis meetings, all Ashley had to do was say: ''OK, Kevin, you can have the final say on which players come and which ones go - after all, you'll be the one who has to work with them every day.''
Instead, he decided to side with Dennis Wise, the man he had brought in as his director of football - and the man most Newcastle fans blame for Keegan's decision to walk. Ashley is a very successful businessman with a very clever head on his shoulders, so he MUST have known what the reaction of the Toon faithful would have been. He must have known his name would be mud.
Of course, the inevitable happened and Keegan walked out. I wrote an article before the start of the season about how KK was joint favourite to be the first Premier League boss of the campaign to part company with his club. I said he had a long history of walking out on clubs and that I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if he was on his merry way not long after the first ball had been kicked. After all, the bookies don't often get it wrong.
However, even I can't argue with his decision this time around. The restrictions being imposed on him were ridiculous in the extreme. Why appoint a manager and then give him no say in who he manages? Is it just me or is that the most incredibly stupid thing you've ever heard? Well, I suppose Alan Curbishley for one must agree because, as it turns out, the West Ham boss beat his Newcastle counterpart to the punch by 24 hours for the exact same reason.
But, if this morning's newspapers are to be believed, Ashley has just outdone himself in the stupidity stakes. Reports suggest he's about to appoint Gus Poyet as the next Newcastle manager. So, not content with flooring the Newcastle fans by forcing their Messiah to walk away, he's now sticking the boot in by replacing him with Wise's best mate! Like I said, Ashley's certainly not afraid to make unpopular decisions.
But if forcing Keegan out was an unpopular decision, then appointing Poyet takes things to a whole new level. I know he has been in the frame for the job ever since Keegan walked, but I never thought Ashley would be stupid enough to actually go ahead and appoint him. Talk about being a glutton for punishment!
I'm not a Newcastle fan and I can't speak for them, but if this had happened at my club, I'd see it as another huge slap in the face. How Ashley can have the gall to sit in the stands in his black-and-white replica shirt pretending he's just another fan is beyond belief. You'd be hard pushed to find a single other soul in a packed St James' Park wearing a similar shirt who agrees with him. These are not the actions of a Newcastle fan.
If Ashley has any semblance of sanity left, he might want to think twice about being in his seat for Newcastle's next home game against Hull on Saturday.
