O'Leary is top of owner Ashley's shortlist

PREMIER LEAGUE:MIKE ASHLEY has warmed to the idea of keeping hold of Newcastle United for another year and possibly installing David O'Leary as the new manager, according to a source close to the club.

Newcastle’s unpredictable owner will decide by the end of the week whether to accept Barry Moat’s bid for the managerless Championship side or take the club off the market and remain in charge for one more season. For the moment at least, placing Newcastle in administration does not appear to be an option under consideration.

“Mike Ashley’s got a big decision to make,” said a source close to efforts to sell the club. The increasing feeling is that with Moat, a Tyneside businessman who would install Alan Shearer as manager, struggling to meet his €117 million valuation, Ashley will gamble on Newcastle making an immediate return to the Premier League. Once there, the sports retail magnate, who has returned to England following a holiday in Hawaii, believes he could recoup some of his €291 million investment by selling for significantly more than €117 million.

While the possibility of Moat taking over is not quite dead in the water, Derek Llambias, Newcastle’s managing director, has already sounded out a series of potential managers with O’Leary topping a shortlist also including Alan Curbishley, Gordon Strachan and one or two foreign coaches. Everyone on the list is out of work and would be swiftly available.

Shearer, who took charge for the final eight games of last season, has made it clear he would relish a chance to return. “I’d dearly love to finish what I started,” he said at the weekend, although he is not believed to feature in Ashley’s plans.

O’Leary, who is on a short break with his family, has been out of work for three years after parting company with Aston Villa in July 2006. O’Leary and Curbishley, formerly in charge of Charlton and West Ham, are friendly with Llambias and O’Leary was a guest of Llambias and Ashley when Newcastle played at Arsenal at the start of last season.

Newcastle’s sizeable wage bill has deterred several prospective buyers and dictated that Moat’s offer is not, as yet, acceptable to Ashley but Newcastle remain the only club in the division not to have made a signing this summer and the squad is worryingly thin.

With less than three weeks to go before the transfer window closes, this is a cause for concern and a disincentive for any new purchaser to enter the equation.

Meanwhile, Chris Hughton, Newcastle’s first-team coach, remains in caretaker managerial charge. Hughton presided over Saturday’s 1-1 draw at West Bromwich Albion when he demoted Joey Barton to the bench after the troubled midfielder criticised his tactics on the eve of the match. Barton is understood to have apologised to Hughton but it is thought Newcastle will now step up their efforts to offload a player who earns around €76,000 a week.

GuardianService