Chris Waddle talking to BBC Sport:
‘A lot of my friends are Newcastle die-hards and, like every Magpies fan I have spoken to recently, they are desperately hoping my old club gets a new owner soon.
Mike Ashley has been trying to sell Newcastle since October 2017 and says takeover talks are at a more advanced stage than ever, but a lot of supporters are cynical about that because they have heard it all before.
I can understand why, because the same thing seems to happen every year – usually just before the January transfer window opens – when Ashley comes out and says he hopes a deal can be done.
I still think we will be talking about a possible takeover at the end of the season too – when we will either be saying Newcastle have done well to stay up, or they have paid the price for the lack of investment in the team and have gone down, again.
There is no doubt Newcastle are in a relegation battle. Sunday’s last-gasp defeat by Wolves was the seventh time out of nine games that they have lost at home in the Premier League this season, and they are only three points above the relegation zone.
I actually thought the result was harsh on the Magpies, who were the better team when they had 11 men and handled Wolves pretty well even after DeAndre Yedlin was sent off with more than half an hour to go.
Defensively, Newcastle were very well organised, which is what you expect from a Rafael Benitez team – he knows how to set a side up to be hard to beat.
The reason I worry about whether they will stay up is what they do at the other end, because they never look like scoring enough goals to get themselves out of trouble.
At the moment, everything they do in attack goes through Salomon Rondon, who is on a season-long loan from West Brom. Rondon did brilliantly in the first half against Wolves, who just could not handle him.
But he ran himself into the ground chasing lost causes and much of Newcastle’s attacking threat disappeared when he ran out of steam, which is what happened after the break.
Without him, there is not a lot else. Ayoze Perez got the Magpies’ equaliser but he scores about one goal every 20 chances, which at this level is not good enough.’