Ashley has just totally contradicted himself - Here's what's so strange about his latest comments

Although the latest news is suggesting a takeover could well be on the cards, Mike Ashley's public comments on Monday went against just about everything he's been saying over the last 12 months - with him doing anything but make a sale private.

His interview with Sky News appeared to be a deliberate attempt to get information across and push a sale through, yet completely contradicts what he has said about a previously sale when dealing with Amanda Staveley - criticising her for making it too public when it all fell through.

When previously stating that no talk of a sale would be played out through the media, he's openly marched into Sky's newsroom and couldn't have been much more open about it all.

https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1069668660204187649

As things stand, it sounds like things are going well and those behind the scenes are optimistic - and that's great - but this just shows what sort of bloke these interested parties are dealign with.

Last year, during talks with Amanda Staveley, Ashley was unhappy that details regarding a potential bid were leaked through the media, with him wanting any details to be kept private, demanding that a non disclosure agreement was signed.

As we know, the sale fell through - although there were question marks over how genuine the interest  actually was.

I find it very hard to believe that Ashley's interview was just off the cuff, there is NO way that he would just dish out information about takeover talks without a motive.

The motive could be to push on any potential interest in order to get a concrete bid in time to do a deal before January, or it could also be to start a bidding war if he's aware of interest from more than one party. Either way, it'll have huffed a few.

https://twitter.com/BlackWhiteBarmy/status/1070392902516391939

Ashley is a shrewd businessman and very clever/manipulative when communicating with the media (as we have seen in previous interviews), however his latest comments are so contradictory and rather hypocritical.

I just hope this deal does go through and doesn't fall flat like we saw this time last year.