I can’t help thinking that Amanda Staveley and her consortium have bought the wrong football club. Had they waited just five months they could have had Chelsea FC rather than Newcastle United. A mooted £3bn price tag may be 10 times the price paid for the Magpies, but still well within the means of Saudi Arabia’s state investment fund. Is a switch out of the question?

At the moment we are dealing in rumour and counter-rumour about the state of Roman Abramovich’s sale of Chelsea. Could it happen quickly or will this be a process with a conventional timetable that runs to months? Could possible government sanctions on the Russian owner yet complicate the equation? And what to make of the valuations bandied around in the media?

As to price, it’s reported that Abramovich is not going to call in his £1.5bn loan to the club. But does this mean he intends to write it off or leave it as a debt for any new owner to shoulder? In short, does a suggested £3bn price tag encompass everything or does it mean that the enterprise value the Russian is placing on Chelsea totals £4.5bn? That’s a huge rounding factor.

And if you fancied spending such sums on a trophy asset in SW6, you’d surely want a stadium to match. The Daily Telegraph last week reported that the costs of the plans to rebuild Stamford Bridge to a 60,000 capacity have ballooned to £2.2bn. Abramovich, you may remember, allowed planning permission – years in the making – to lapse in 2020 after the failure to renew his UK visa. 

Either the sums being mentioned are fanciful or Abramovich’s advisors are going to have to look beyond individual billionaires in search of a preferred bidder. When we are told that they will avoid parties likely to prove controversial, I read this as shorthand for them not wanting to get bogged down in Premier League approval processes in the rush to get a deal concluded quickly.