There is confidence within the Mike Ashley camp that the Saudi-led takeover of Newcastle United will go through.
Ashley has two legal battles coming up with the Premier League with regards to how they handled the owners and directors test for the Toon takeover, and there is an apparent belief it will be ruled in United's favour.
Those legal battles are set to get under way in the coming weeks, and last week the PA reported how Ashley's camp had been 'encouraged' by the news the top flight had not requested Saudi Arabia should remain on the USA's piracy watch list.
Speaking on The Everything is Black and White Podcast, our chief sports writer Lee Ryder was asked about Ashley's positivity.
"All the confidence is coming from the Mike Ashley side of it," he said.
"We don't traditionally get loads of information from that side but we are getting a bit now.
"The message we are getting is that Mike Ashley is very confident that this [takeover] can go through.
"He may have seen something we haven't seen in the court papers or he may be using it [the confidence] as a ploy to build up some pressure on the Premier League, we don't know.
"But the message that sends to me is that Ashley is desperately pushing and trying every trick in the book to get this takeover done and dusted, and if it goes through then it's going to be a huge relief.
"If it doesn't we'll be stuck in the current situation of not much money and the club back up for sale with another buyer needed to be found and it would be agonising that if after all this it didn't go through."
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Ashley has made it clear that the only serious bidder for Newcastle is the Public Investment Fund consortium, and has effectively shut out any other interested parties.
Perhaps understandable given the interest of the Bin Zayed Group, Joseph Da Grosa and the Orlegi Sports Group - three interested parties who got nowhere near as close to buying the club as the Saudi-backed group.
Asked about whether it was a gamble from Ashley to focus solely on the group, Ryder added: "That is what Mike Ashley does - he gambles. He gambles in business and has gambled at Newcastle United before when they've been in relegation fights, it's in his nature.
"The reality is that last April, Ashley believed he had a deal done.
"He signed the paperwork, he agreed a price, he agreed a buyer and said 'there you go, off you go to the Premier League' - it's not speculation, it's fact that he nearly sold the club.
"It's the Premier League who didn't process that deal for reasons beyond us."
