Forces perfectly positioned

I rather suspect that General Ashley is feeling rather pleased with himself at the moment.
He has positioned his forces in such a way that he clearly controls the battle space.
Moreover, he has achieved this without firing a shot in this boardroom war.
Essentially his opponents have done it all on their own.
I understand that not all of the employees of Sevco will be paid this month unless there is a fresh injection of working capital.
The attempts by the New Regime to open a line of communication with General Ashley continues.
However,he does not appear to be minded to respond to them.
Recently those fine chaps at Level 5 were asked by the New Regime to contact the PR people at Sports Direct.
Quite simply Big Mike is not in a mood to talk at the moment.
Mt Square Mile guy reckons that Ashley has played his hand perfectly.
He said to me that Big Mike has simply allowed the New Regime to enter the Big House in triumph.
He had not moved on them then, but he had simply watched as they had been swamped by the situation that they themselves engineered.
As it stands my City chum reckoned that the current people in ‘power’ at Ibrox had three choices:
(1) Stump up enough cash to fund the operation through a rebuilding process over the next five years.
(2) Walk away.
(3) Start a new club off site and hope to attract the fans away from the current club at Ibrox.

I said to him that (1) was, in my opinion, unlikely and that (2) and (3) were unthinkable for the fans.
However he countered that if (2) came to pass and Mr Ashley was triumphant then, at least, the supporters would have a team at Ibrox called ‘Rangers’ to support now and into the future.
One thing he did point out. He thought it “very strange” that the New Regime had not borrowed against the stadium as it was on the only asset that was not secured against the £5m loan from Sports Direct.
I reminded him that both Graham Wallace and Philip Nash had attempted several times to raise finance against Ibrox.
However each time the City chaps had refused.
His summing up was that Ashley held all the cards.
Moreover he said that it did not appear that the New Regime had planned this out very well at all.
On the available evidence it would seem that his analysis is spot on.

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