AS part of his ongoing charm offensive, Derek Llambias used last weekend’s programme notes to issue the following missive to Newcastle United supporters: “If it wasn’t for Mike’s (Ashley) continued input, I genuinely think we would be in a similar position to the one Portsmouth find themselves them in at this moment.”

At which point, it’s easy to call his bluff and reply: “What? You mean still in the Premier League and looking forward to an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley?”

After months of media silence, Llambias has put his head above the parapet repeatedly in the last few weeks in an attempt to recast the Ashley regime as saviours rather than scoundrels, victims instead of perpetrators.

“A small and very negative group...still insist on chanting ugly and abusive comments about the club’s owner Mike Ashley,” he went on. “I have tried to ignore this abuse but frankly something needs to be said.”

Like a stern schoolmaster ticking off an errant pupil, Llambias has just about had enough of it. Much more of the negativity, and he’s going to take away his ball.

The initial response, in the face of such misplaced piety, is to trot out the list of lies, mistakes and crises that have discredited the Ashley regime.

But is there a kernel of truth to some of Llambias’ comments? Had Ashley not bought out Freddy Shepherd, might Newcastle have been in a far worse state than they are now?

Even his most hardened critic would have to concede the possibility of such a scenario.

Newcastle were in a financial mess when Ashley arrived on the scene, with a catalogue of ill-advised signings, unaffordable wage packages and badlystructured commercial deals contributing to a balance sheet that was rapidly spiralling out of control.

The sportswear magnate has pumped in £280m of his own money to reduce the debt to a manageable level, and unlike the scenario currently playing out at Manchester United and Liverpool, his investment has been in the form of interest-free loans rather than packages that have saddled the club with even more debt.

He has come up with more than £30m this season just to keep Newcastle afloat, and provided £5m of transfer fees during the January window to increase the likelihood of an immediate return to the Premier League in May.

While high-earning players left last summer, he resisted the temptation to sell all and sundry, preferring instead to retain the highest wage bill in the Championship in the hope that it would result in promotion.

Financially, it is hard to pick holes in much of what he has done, but the question Llambias should be asking himself, rather than simply lauding Ashley’s supposed largesse, is why his boss has been forced to act in such a manner.

Ultimately, the answer is twofold. One, because he inexplicably failed to complete a full process of due diligence and therefore did not appreciate the full extent of what he was getting himself into when he bought out Shepherd.

And two, because a series of disastrous policies – the appointment of Kevin Keegan, the promotion of Dennis Wise, the purchase of Xisco and Ignacio Gonzalez, the dismissal of Keegan, the appointment of Joe Kinnear, the list is just about endless – led to Newcastle’s relegation to the Championship.

If Ashley hadn’t messed up so disastrously last season, Newcastle wouldn’t have been relegated. And if Newcastle hadn’t been relegated, Ashley wouldn’t have had to dig into his pockets to bail the club out.

Make no mistake about it, the millionaire businessman hasn’t splashed out £30m since last summer because he’s desperate for his club’s supporters to enjoy a promotion party. This isn’t some sort of altruistic crusade to improve Tyneside’s collective mood.

If Ashley had been able to sell the club last summer, he would have been counting his pennies in the sunset by now.

Because he was unable to find a buyer, though, he finds himself stuck with a diminishing asset.

Any businessman in that position has two choices.

They either cut their losses and get out as quickly as they can, or they speculate to accumulate in the hope that things will eventually get better.

Option one was never really available. Had Ashley not found the money to keep Newcastle going this season, the club would have gone into administration and as by far the biggest creditor, he would have walked away with next to nothing.

So instead, he invested the minimum required to keep things ticking over.

Stumble through to the end of the season, win promotion to the Premier League, and suddenly a club worth less than £100m is back on the market for double that price.

It’s the reality of the business world, and while Ashley can hardly be blamed for protecting his asset, so he should not be praised for looking after number one either.

Not when it is little more than a year-and-a-half since Wise was allowed to sign a player he had only seen on You Tube as a ‘favour’ to two South American agents.

Not when it is only six months since the Keegan tribunal ruled that Newcastle officials had systematically misled the club’s supporters.

And not when it is only four months since the controversial decision to sell the naming rights to St James’ Park and sweep away more than a century of history in the process.

As Newcastle supporters watch events unfold at Portsmouth, they will begrudgingly accept that things could be worse.

But as they glance towards the directors box at St James’, they will also conclude that they could be an awful lot better. And for all of Llambias’ protestations, it will be a long time before that situation changes.