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Very few people know what makes Mike Ashley tick.

But making money and annoying the hell out of people can be pretty much taken as read. He is an absolute belter at both.

In the same week some Newcastle supporters were preparing a boycott of today’s game against Tottenham Hotspur in protest at his ownership, results for the financial year ending April 30, 2014 showed Ashley’s ­companies had made a profit of £524.7million.

That’s 524.7m reasons why Ashley does not give a toss about the malcontents who will make themselves scarce.

Anyway, they are ingrates, the lot of them. Ashley saved the club, he has put bundles of his own cash in. Sure he has.

And if you think Ashley is not going to make a big fat profit from his investment in Newcastle United, then you are as deluded as John Carver when he says it’s going to be spend, spend, spend this summer.

(Image: Reuters)

Carver is probably just towing the line. Grateful to be given an unlikely chance as a Premier League manager.

And Ashley seems to like grateful people. He has dabbled with employees who might not ­necessarily NEED the job – Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer – but it has been mainly those who would be dutifully thankful.

Joe Kinnear? Four years out of a job and completely off-radar. Grateful? Yes. Chris Hughton? A backroom shuffler for many years. Grateful? Yes.

Alan Pardew? Let go by ­Championship Charlton, then dumped by League One ­Southampton. Grateful? Yes.

Carver? Seemingly destined for a career as an assistant. Grateful? Yes.

Ashley likes grateful people. That is why 15,000 of his ­company’s staff are on those zero-hours contracts.

(Image: Action Images)

Unfortunately for them, they are grateful for ­whatever he can put their way. And for him, the dosh keeps rolling in.

St James’ Park is a gaudy billboard televised around the world, thanks to the success of the Premier League.

The club itself showed a tidy profit of £18.7m in its last set of accounts, which also revealed a bank balance of £34.1m.

It also showed that Ashley’s interest-free loan to the club stands at £129m. But that’s what it is: a loan. He will have it back, make no mistake.

Meanwhile, Ashley and his chief executive Lee Charnley – risen without trace and, no doubt, extremely grateful – have cast aside any pretence of running a club with traditional values.

Their lack of interest in cup competitions, for example, is a heinous insult.

In pictures: Liverpool 2-0 Newcastle

Yet you can bet, Newcastle fans, that Ashley thinks you should be eternally grateful. You should not. Your club has become a commercial shell. A vacuous ­institution. And the only people who keep it an institution are you.

There has been a good, balanced debate rattling around Tyneside over the worthiness of not turning up for the fixture against Spurs.

Those who say the team – on a desperate run – needs support regardless of feelings against the owner have a strong case.

Those who say there is no ­alternative out there are also not without reasonable foundation for their view.

But the least convincing ­argument against supporting the boycott is that whatever happens it will not concern Ashley one iota.That is not the point.

Whether you turn up or not, making sure – in an entirely peaceful and reasonable manner, of course – Ashley knows that you, unlike his staff, do not have to be grateful, is the least any ­self-respecting Newcastle fan can do.