The single biggest problem that Mike Ashley has had at Newcastle is that fans turned on him apparently without hearing his side of the story - he'd just wanted to be a footballing man owning a club for a hobby, as somewhere to have a bit of fun on a Saturday. Except, then it turned out he was financially motivated from the outset when Sir John Hall lifted the lid on negotiations - inevitably there was no way he could ever have said "okay, lads, I'm here to make money", but he could have scored a PR win by simply being a lot more open. Ashley has created a negative publicity wave against himself by refusing to ever speak in public about his intentions for the club, or by only allowing his executives to speak to retaliate to things. They are never on the front foot, and because of their silence, they have created a defensive position for themselves. The irony is that Newcastle fans knew that the excesses of the Shepherd/Hall era were just as bad as those presided over by Murray at Rangers, but in refusing to talk or admit that he wanted to make Newcastle a viable business again, Ashley created a pantomime villain of himself that fans cannot resist defaulting to. But still, don't expect it to be any different at Rangers.
