You see these entrepreneurs on Dragons’ Den and The Apprentice and they pose and preen and act so tough; but, seriously, how hard can it be to succeed in business in modern-day Britain? How hard can it be to make millions, billions even, in the world of commerce and venture capitalism? After all, if the lot in charge at Newcastle United at present can do it, we really are in the wrong game.

He turned them down. Can you believe that? They offered him in the region of five million quid a year and Harry Redknapp thought about it and then said no. They had no guarantees, no confidential agreements, not so much as a nod and a wink or a tacit understanding. When Mike Ashley and his board parted company with Sam Allardyce, three days before a visit to Old Trafford (didn’t that work out well) and one week before a tricky FA Cup third-round replay that will define the sorry wreckage of their season, they were making it up as they went along. There was no brave new world, no cunning plan. They had a mind to throw José Mourinho’s salary at a man who has never won a trophy of significance as a manager and, now that he has hung them out to dry, the process will begin again.

Except that the next manager to be approached will know he is second choice to Redknapp, which hardly places the headhunters in a position of strength when it comes to the soft soap or the hard sell. The fans, bless them, still speculate about names such as Marcello Lippi, but when your most recent managerial achievement was winning the World Cup, having already landed five Serie A titles and the Champions League, it could be that you would hope to get the call ahead of a chap who is widely agreed to be doing a good job at Portsmouth.

Lippi, like Mourinho, Louis van Gaal and Guus Hiddink, may now feel that Newcastle are run by a bunch of amateurs and if £5 million was the going rate for Redknapp, think of a number and double it, pal. This could turn out to be one expensive leap of faith for an investor who is already £250 million down on his Newcastle deal.

It always astonishes me how men who clearly know how to operate at the helm of a business empire can be so crass and irrational given the keys to a football club. Sports Direct International has given Ashley a fortune counted in the billions and he has a reputation as one of the shrewdest operators around, yet at Newcastle he has adopted the persona of the populist buffoon, with his replica shirt and his conspicuous berth in the cheap seats with the fans.

He fails to understand that he can never be one of them because they can never sell up and leave, as he can. If he just concentrated on being his own man they would respect him for that even more. Ken Bates was not born a Chelsea fan and once threatened to have his more demented followers electrocuted, but is still held in higher esteem at Stamford Bridge than perhaps even Roman Abramovich. Why? Because the locals always knew he was on their side and would defend Chelsea’s interests to the death. He did not have to put on a blue shirt and stand in The Shed.

What type of general do Newcastle have in Ashley? Heaven knows. In his first interview since Allardyce’s dismissal, he spoke boldly of wanting to do things his way, yet explained the decision with a mealy-mouthed “. . . so when my chairman told me it was time for a change, I knew it had to happen . . .”, which suggests that now the flak is flying, he is not so keen to stand in the line of fire.

Maybe he just wants to be loved, which would explain the sudden crowd-pleasing links to Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer. “I want a team that will go all out to try to give Chelsea a walloping, that will be brave and bold enough to attack Manchester United,” he said yesterday, the neediness all too obvious. “To date I have invested £250 million to try and make that happen.”

Yet by Ashley’s admission, £140 million of that was spent buying the club and £100 million clearing the debt, which leaves £10 million for the players capable of walloping a team who have not lost at home in 74 league matches; or put another way, £5 million less than Chelsea have spent on one striker, Nicolas Anelka.

Go into the Dragons’ Den with a business plan such as that and men from Ashley’s background would laugh. Yet put Ashley in charge at Newcastle and he becomes no different to any novice. If he ran his business the way he runs his football club, he wouldn’t be able to afford a pair of knock-off trainers, let alone a world-class manager.

Asking for trouble

On January 2, 1971, at the end of an Old Firm derby, 66 Rangers supporters were killed in a crush leaving Ibrox stadium. When the fixture fell on the same date 27 years later, it was considered fitting to respect one minute’s silence for the victims.

The only problem was the match was at Celtic Park. I was there. A solemn announcement was made, the referee’s whistle blew and silence descended, at which point a loud voice, audible throughout the ground, shouted: “Sunday, bloody Sunday, f*** ’em all” and chaos ensued, with fans from both sides swearing and shouting at each other, until the exercise was curtailed as debasing and pointless.

There will be commemorations for the dead of the Munich air disaster at Old Trafford on February 10. The visiting team that day will be Manchester City. I am sure the majority of away supporters will be impeccably behaved, but it only takes one idiot. If the Premier League can fix the fixtures to give us a trumped-up Super Sunday for the television cameras every few months, surely they could have come up with a pairing less volatile than this?

United, a police state?

When Sir Alex Ferguson criticised the Old Trafford crowd for the subdued atmosphere during the match with Birmingham City on New Year’s Day, Sky Sports quite understandably sought the reaction of the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association.

A spokesman described the ground as a “police state”, Ferguson was furious and, on Friday, Sky’s cameras were barred from his press conference to preview the match with Newcastle United. An authoritarian land in which all voices of dissent are suppressed: now what is the word for that again? Don’t tell me, it’s on the tip of my tongue . . .

McClaren misses again

Somebody needs to tell Steve McClaren that England are out of the European Championship. No doubt his PR advisers thought it good for his image to be able to joke lamely about that umbrella in his first round of interviews since the Croatia defeat, but it only made him look lightweight. He should have welcomed some hard talk, a chance properly to review and examine his decisions, to inspect precisely how and where his time as England head coach went wrong. Instead, he provided another essay in superficiality. Strangely appropriate, really.

Make Croatia come last

Fabio Capello enjoys his first test as England manager today, the meeting in Zagreb that will decide the order of the World Cup qualifying fixtures. All countries present will have a wish list. Mine would be to play the hardest game, Croatia away, last.

If Capello does his job in the preceding matches, he may already have qualified, so the trip would be rendered irrelevant. This is the happy state the Croats were in when they arrived at Wembley last year and look what happened.

Brown on bandwagon

David Beckham has not played competitive football since November 21, so must find other ways to catch the eye of Fabio Capello. That is his prerogative and it is up to the England manager whether he falls for it. But isn’t the eagerness of the increasingly desperate Gordon Brown to catch some of the reflected glory quite sickening?

martin.samuel@thetimes.co.uk

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