John Beresford blasts Mike Ashley

The Sun has reported that John Beresford has called Mike Ashley and blasted him over the phone, telling him that he has made Newcastle a laughing stock.

John Beresford, Toon Legend 1992-1998

"I would love to know who is advising Mike Ashley and the Newcastle board, because, at the moment, the club is a laughing stock. The Newcastle fans are proud people. But if Ashley keeps giving everyone ammo to fire at the club, the situation is just going to get worse.

The season was like a slow car crash with no brake being applied. But now people are just laughing. Can anyone imagine Manchester United asking people to e-mail them bids for the club? Newcastle are in no-man's land right now. Sometimes I just want to ring up Ashley and say 'Look, I don't have any business knowledge but do you need a hand? Do you want some advice?' He clearly does, because at the moment things are just going from bad to awful. He needs to get out quickly, though, of course, it doesn't always happen like that.

Everyone I speak to in football keeps asking me 'What the hell is going on at Newcastle?' You just couldn't make it up. I've heard people comparing the situation to what happened at Leeds but I think it's worse than that. The club is plummeting like a stone. When you think it can't get any worse, it does. They need some finality for the whole Ashley saga. But I fear for them, I really do."

Yesterday, we reported that Newcastle was up for sale at £100million and that interested parties should email their bids to NUFC. What has happened that was many Sunderland fans have emailed us, with many making bids of £10 and £20. If there was any case of schadenfreude, this is definitely one.

What John Beresford has said definitely makes sense, and NUFC have been lumbering from one disaster to another. Over the past 12 months, there was the Keegan debacle, hiring of JFK, Chris Hughton as the interim manager, Shearer as the interim manager, relegation, and when we all thought that Mike Ashley has come good by apologizing, he puts the club up for sale yet again.

Many newspapers have labelled this akin to an eBay sale, and I feel that labelling this as an eBay sale is an understatement. At least with an eBay sale, we do know that auctions will end within a period of time. We do not know when Mike Ashley will sell NUFC, but we do hope it will be soon.

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