In an exclusive interview with Football FanCast, Newcastle United Hall of Famer Rob Lee believes there is only one thing stopping Newcastle from being taken over, and that's Mike Ashley.

In the last few years, Newcastle have been involved in a number of failed takeover bids which included earlier bids by Amanda Staveley, Peter Kenyon and one from the Bin Zayed Group, who have also just failed to purchase Derby County.

Mike Ashley has been desperate to get out of Newcastle for a number of years now as he wishes to put more focus on his retail portfolio, but as of yet only one party has made a suitable offer in PIF but they were then denied access into the Premier League via the Directors and Owners tests.

Speaking on Ashley's true willingness to sell and what he hopes for Newcastle going forward, Lee told FFC:

"Something I see is people wanting Newcastle to go down because they think Ashley will then sell the club. I wouldn't want that at all, I want the club to stay in the Premier League. If they do, then I just hope that somebody who wants to take the club forward buys Newcastle.

"There always seems to be one thing that goes wrong with these takeovers, always. The one constant factor in all of this is Mike Ashley, he's involved in every failed takeover. So it makes me wonder how much he wants to sell the club."

Newcastle United are currently in a legal battle with the Premier League over a dispute regarding who would actually own the club if PIF bought the club.

While all this is going on off the pitch, the Magpies find themselves one place above the bottom three and relegation could scupper any potential takeover.