Only when a new owner buys out the hated Mike Ashley will the club’s fans appreciate the Saudi Arabia deal was not the one they needed to hitch themselves to
Put the cans back in the fridge. Take down the Kylian Mbappé poster from your bedroom wall. Quietly delete the Saudi Arabia flag from your Twitter handle. Yes, the end is nigh for one of English football’s most unlikely summer romances. Boy meets sovereign wealth fund. Boy loses sovereign wealth fund over television piracy issues. Boy pockets £17m deposit. A tale as old as time itself.
Of course, you don’t need to be a professional satirist to spot the heavy irony in Saudi Arabia’s bid for Newcastle United being thwarted by due legal process, something so strikingly optional in its own justice system. Having spent the past few months bullishly briefing that a deal was imminent, unfairly raising the hopes of millions of fans desperate to see the back of the hated Mike Ashley, the country’s Public Investment Fund – along with Amanda Staveley’s PCP Capital Partners and the billionaire Reuben brothers – have been forced into a hasty retreat. You hate to see it.