Mike Ashley has ensured Rafa Benitez will have his hands tied once again in the January transfer window after putting the club up for sale once again.
The time-honoured festive trickery, which was first exposed in The London Economic, sees the tracksuit tycoon create speculation over the club’s ownership in order to avoid spending in the transfer window.
The club goes up for sale in December before hopes of a potential acquisition get dashed in January- just as the window closes.
A source close to the club said: “This sounds like the usual copy and paste Mike Ashley approach.
“It was interesting that he had enough funds to buy House of Fraser after the summer transfer window closed.
“And now he’s about to shut the Newcastle store down to boot.”
Ashley revealed that he is in “advanced talks” to sell Newcastle United in a live interview with Sky News.
He claimed there is an outside chance the sale could be finalised before the January transfer window, but fans aren’t convinced.
One said on Twitter: “You can tell he’s lying…his lips are moving”, while nother said: “Not getting my hopes up like.. Can tell the January window is approaching again, he said similar things last year.”