For Newcastle United, nothing has changed yet everything is different. At 3pm today, the team relegated from the Barclays Premier League on the final, harrowing afternoon of last season will play a football match, their first of the summer.

Given the circumstances, it stretches credibility to describe their friendly fixture away to Shamrock Rovers, in Dublin, as heralding a new era. Yet, of course, it is precisely that.

It is only a game, but few people of a black-and-white persuasion at the Tallaght Stadium will be wallowing in good humour. Fewer still will be there; not Alan Shearer, the wannabe manager, who is yet to be appointed, nor Mike Ashley, the reluctant owner, whose calamitous tenure of the club limps on morosely.

Up for sale, up in the air, out of excuses and nearly out of time.

Supporters will be present and so will the players. With the exception of those who have fallen out of contract, it is the same collection of underachieving misfits (with a limited number of exceptions) who dragged Newcastle towards oblivion two months ago, Joey Barton included. To quote from the title of the excellent play about the club, which completed its run at the city’s Live Theatre last night, You Really Couldn’t Make it Up.

The club specialise in low farce and if the sight of the team returning to action — the start of the Coca-Cola Championship is less than a month away — does not put a desperate situation into sharper focus, nothing will. But who is taking notice? Leadership at all levels at Newcastle, from the boardroom to the dugout, is non-existent and every day that elapses represents an opportunity squandered.

There are important points to be made, however, about the process of selling Newcastle, not all of which are downbeat.

The most obvious is that these things take time, no matter the frustration it breeds. When foreign bidders are involved, when millions of pounds are at stake, with financial and legal documents to be studied and agreed, the pace cannot and should not be forced. There is, of course, an exception to this rule — the bloke who used to sit in Newcastle’s directors’ box with an extra-large “King Kev” shirt plastered across his meaty frame.

When Ashley bought the club, he may have effectively ambushed Freddy Shepherd, the former chairman, but his failure to undertake due diligence left him confronting a mountainous debt. It was the first of many, many errors.

The groups attempting to buy Newcastle are not dealing with a normal business or a normal owner; little wonder that their inquiries are so exhaustive. Optimism that a deal may be completed by the start of next week has dipped but Keith Harris, the executive chairman of Seymour Pierce, the investment bank charged with conducting the sale, continues to work with diligence and discretion.

While the list of overseas locations linked with bids continues to grow at a tedious rate, it is a useful, if not cast-iron, rule of thumb that those who speak the loudest can be discounted most readily. Non-disclosure agreements are in place, substantive bidders simply do not need to make themselves heard — as opposed to publicity-seekers — and only Harris is aware of the full list of individuals involved.

In football terms, however, the danger is that decay sets in, that new owners will not have enough scope to revitalise a squad in urgent need of it; the majority involved against Shamrock are fully aware that they will not be on Tyneside when hostilities recommence.

Shearer has plans in position but can do nothing to implement them and while he remains eager to take the post, he is powerless.

Newcastle, meanwhile, are just rudderless.