If any of the stipulations being reported are true (i.e. The relegation clause), then Ashley should have rejected it and that's the case even if the valuation was acceptable.
If they are going to pay in installments, putting in a lower payment for that season (then increasing upon promotion) is a different story.
The number of people freaking out over a low initial bid and subsequent rejection are being unrealistic. There is a willing buyer and willing seller (it seems) and as long as that's the case let the negotiations continue.
Indeed.
I suspect matters are complicated by Ashley's need to reconcile his greed, his fear and his ego.
I imagine that Ashley can't abide the thought that someone else might do a better job running NUFC than him, casting a still more dismal light on his own failures.
I reckon he aspires to sell the club to a someone who knows nothing at all about football, is too fuelled by hubris to bother with due diligence, and in consequence doesn't realise the club's true price tag. Finding such a candidate would allow him to rip them off and gloat afterwards about how clever he's been, satisfying his self-image as a maverick who always confounds the experts to win big.
In other words, he's wanting to sell the club to himself as he was in 2007. Which isn't a viable proposition.
I have this dream that the whole scenario will play out like that great British film The Long Good Friday, with Ashley in the Bob Hoskins role as the oik made good who finds himself faced with forces far too strong and nasty for him.
But that returns me to the point about hope being dangerous.