It is not just the events at St James' Park that underline this, either, with Liverpool fans being so unhappy at the running of their club that they spent last Saturday protesting against the board and calling for change. Likewise, it is less than three weeks since Manchester City devotees were fearing for the future due to the uncertainty caused by Thaksin Shinawatra's problems in his native Thailand.

The blue half of Manchester's problems seem, on the surface, to have been solved by the arrival of the Abu Dhabi United Group, but then wasn't the same said about Shinawatra last year when he was hailed as the club's saviour? Ditto Mike Ashley at Newcastle and the Anfield duo of Tom Hicks and George Gillett when they arrived promising fans the earth.

All three have since seen the initial adulation of supporters left starry-eyed by the prospect of millions being spent on players give way to feelings of scepticism, frustration and, eventually, anger at what direction each club has taken.

What all these so-called 'knights in shining armour' soon found out was that running a football club properly is tough. Very tough.

It takes patience, it takes vision, it takes an understanding of what makes football like no other business and it takes a healthy dose of realism – all skills largely absent among the new breed of owners.

Instead, what we have had are blatant attempts to curry favour with the locals, either by making rash promises about trophies and new stadiums or by staging increasingly bizarre publicity stunts such as drinking with supporters to project a 'man of the people' image or appointing a hugely popular former manager despite him having admitted to not watching a game of football for two years.

Then, when it all goes wrong and the expected trophies do not materialise, the dreaded words 'doing a Leeds' are trotted out to try and appease supporters in the way naughty children are threatened with the bogeyman.

In fact, perhaps the most worrying aspect of the Newcastle saga is that lessons from what happened at Elland Road have not been learned – as Ashley revealed in last weekend's statement announcing his intention to sell Newcastle.

He said: "Commercial deals such as sponsorships and advertising had been front-loaded. The money had been paid up front and spent. I was left with a club that owed millions and part of whose future had been mortgaged."

This revelation does beg the worrying question as to how many other Premier League clubs are run along similar lines because, as Leeds fans will tell you from bitter experience, one is too many.

Some of the new breed of owners in the top division have shown an understanding of what sets football apart with Randy Lerner at Aston Villa seeming to be someone with a realistic outlook who is prepared to build the club patiently. Even the Glazers – notwithstanding the huge debt they piled on Manchester United when buying the club – have left the day-to-day running to Sir Alex Ferguson and chief executive David Gill.

Those and Roman Abramovich – who was prepared from the very start to lavish huge amounts on Chelsea that he had no hope of recouping – apart, however, it seems the new breed of owners are yet to realise just what sets football apart from every other business in the world. And that means there could be worrying times ahead for many of our big clubs.