Former Vice-Chairman of Tottenham Hotspur, Paul Kemsley is Mike Ashley’s private advisor? I can say it seems to appear like that. Kemsley who left the London club Spurs in October 2007 and runs Rock Properties, a property company, is a close friend of Mike.

Source close to Ashley claim that Mike wants Hughes at first place after taking the decision to sack Allardyce, but later he made Harry Redknapp his top target upon the advice of Paul Kemsley. Ashley thought with Paul Kemsley having far more experience in football, he must be right about Redknapp.

Ashley known to admire the Welsh manager when he was regularly visiting Ewood Park regarding to commercial tie-up between Blackburn’s former kit manufacturer Lonsdale which is one of Ashley company.

Now, after Harry Redknapp is announcing to stay at Pompey, Mike turn on his sight back to Hughes again. The senior Newcastle United sources, told the Guardian last night about the CVs of other candidates are also being scrutinized. The name of other strong candidates are including Gérard Houllier, Jose Mourinho and Steve McClaren.

Before coming back from his business trip, Mike have said that he needs time to make his final decision about the one who will be the next United manager. The club source also admits they (Ashley and Chris Mort) will take their time in making a careful appointment.

But, after watching the last Saturday’s trashing by Manchester United and how the United caretaker Nigel Pearson said it is the situation that would be best to served first, there’s no other way for both Mike Ashley and Chris Mort except to make the decision immediately.

The man himself, Mark Hughes, said he had not had any contact with Newcastle so far and he doesn’t answer to any hypothetical questions that come to his side about the possibility to manage Newcastle United.

“It’s not in my hands; it’s in the chairman’s hands. I’m proud to be Blackburn Rovers’ manager (but) in football you can never say never.” He told the Guardian.

Meanwhile, the Magpies Zone source said the thing about Hughes that bothers the Toon Army is that he is a classic ‘other club’ man. There isn’t anything about him for Newcastle to be proud of. He is just doesn’t feel right to some.

So, who will be the one?

Have been silent after his parted company with Sam Allardyce, Mike Ashley finally allowed an interview with News of The World on Sunday and said his decision in the week because he could not envisage much success under his former manager.

“When my chairman told me it was time for a change, I knew it had to happen,” Ashley said, “I bought this club to make it a success and the harsh truth is there wasn’t much prospect of that. I bought this club to have some fun and I wasn’t having much fun at all.”

Ashley said his first thought upon taking over Newcastle in June was based on his gut instinct to bring in my own team to run it straight away, including a new manager.

“But for once in my life I ignored my intuition and, looking back, that was a mistake.” He added more on his interview, “I want a team that is going to be admired up and down the country because of our brilliant, attacking football. Like they did when Kevin Keegan was in charge here.”

Ashley is keen for Newcastle to turn back to their mid-1990s when United played in a go-for-goals exciting football that fears most of the other Premiership defenders. To date he has invested around 250 million pounds including the clearance of club’s debts.

Mike also said he wants to have some fun and wasn’t having much of it recently. So he did what he think should have done in the first place and decided it was time to run the club the way he wanted.

“Now is the time to put away my Newcastle shirt. I’m not saying I will never go back on the terraces but now I have to be in the boardroom. I have to be hands on.”

Ashley was considering as desperately disappointed with the return of his massive investment. Newcastle United’s poor performances, disappointed results and off-field problems including the Joey Barton’s last incident are shocking rewards and was not Ashley’s vision when he decided to buy the sleeping giants of English football.

On his last words of the interview with NoTW, Mike said he wants to be here and to win trophies.

“That’s it - period - to get trophies in the cabinet and have a ball doing it. I can’t see anything wrong with that at all. Buying a football club is something I’ve always wanted to do so it’s living a dream.” He said, “I always said I bought this club to become part of its passion.”

“I’d like to think I’ve done that. Now I want to channel that passion into bringing success and I just can’t wait until it happens.”

Mike Ashley now has finished with his business work in Hong Kong and will jetted back home immediately and rush in to his office at St. James’ and start working on with Chris Mort to make his final decision of who will be the next United manager.

I believe not very long now, we will have another official announcement and it’s interesting to see who that “lucky” manager is.

The whole things about who is the next United manager is getting hotter as today’s Chronicle report the man from Pompey has stunned the football world when he turned down the chance to manage Newcastle United to stay at Portsmouth.

Mike Ashley is no mug. I seriously doubt he would have fired Allardyce if he hadn’t received assurances that Redknapp would be favourably disposed to taking the job.

What Ashley couldn’t control was the response of the Pompey owners - who are also mega-rich. Again, I feel certain that these guys will have offered Harry Redknapp a serious sweetener to get him to stay.

And about Jose Mourinho, he has a proven international record of playing ‘winning football’ almost from Day-One. Allardyce was “losing ugly”, and his team showed no signs whatsoever of getting onto the same wavelength.

That is not to say he couldn’t have improved things if he was about to given time, but his reputation and track record was such that the best we could expect was to improve from “losing ugly” to “winning a little more often, but still ugly”.

These things happen, and I don’t believe we should write Ashley off as a doughnut because of it. However, having been dropped in the clag by Redknapp, he is now under serious pressure to fill the job, and I genuinely believe his next move is the most critical. It will perhaps show us his real mettle.