Hardly any of that is true.
He didn't sack Keegan, Keegan resigned and successfully sued for constructive dismissal.
Ashley put nothing into the training ground, academy, stadium for 14 years. Allowing them all to fall into disrepair. He arbitrarily changed the name of the stadium to promote his sportswear shop, he plastered the stadium in tacky adverts for the same. He paid Newcastle United nothing for the until the final season where he paid the princely sum of £1m.
He consistently cut costs throughout the club failing to employ a professional backroom team, relying instead on one man (Lee Charnley) to do the job of dozens. He was successfully sued by Jonas Gutierrez for disability discrimination. He falsely accused fans of making threats on his life. He consistently lied to fans, managers, players, and press. He treated ex-managers, ex-players appallingly, was petty and vindictive (refusing to allow a statue of Shearer to be placed on club grounds and changing the name of the bar from Shearer's to Nine). He gave jobs to mates who had no proven ability for the roles like Wise and Llambias, hadn't done anything in top flight football for years like Keegan, Kinnear, Pardew, and ousted managers who did well and were well liked by the fans; Hughton, Benitez. As I've said he turned a team who for the 14yrs prior had regularly been playing Europe, into one regularly flirting with relegation. A club existing solely to exist, no interest in chasing cups, or striving to be the best it could be, just an entity existing to exist.
I remember the game against Wolves in October 2021, just before the takeover, it was probably the least I've cared about a Newcastle game in my life. A soulless, joyless, emptiness. It wasn't just the defeat or the manner of it, I just didn't care. If we went down we might win some more games but who cares, if we stay up we'll end up in another relegation fight so who cares? What's the point? Nobody at the club wants us to do more, Bruce admitted his remit was to keep us "ticking over". That's not what football is about. It's about striving to be the very best you can be, and Newcastle United could be better than relegation fodder. Even under Ashley we could have been better, employ the right people, trust them to do the job of meeting long term goals. Bloom does it, Benham is doing it, and starting with a much smaller budget than we had. It was Ashley's ego, Ashley parsimony, Ashley's arrogance and incompetence that turned a club from a joyful roller coaster ride, into traffic jammed Mondeo with a knackered stereo. 10,000 people felt the same, and got off the ride.
Our fans wanted change and were keen on takeovers from a group lead by Peter Kenyon, the Orleggi group from Mexico, Henry Mauriss from America, a Saudi individual Sheikh Khaled, and so on. The Athletic ran a poorly worded poll, which detractors have taken liberties with. They asked "Are you in favour of the Saudi takeover", and of course all but a minority voted yes. Now, had the survey asked "Are you in favour of a takeover?" You would have had the same results. Had they asked "Would you rather be owned by the Saudi state, the Orleggi Group, a Group lead by Peter Kenyon or Mike Ashley?" you would have seen far fewer Saudi votes and a more accurate reflection of reality. But you didn't, because clickbait.
