Amanda Staveley plays Mike Ashley superbly as she edges towards completing Newcastle takeover

Even when takeover talks ground to a halt and negotiations began to run out of goodwill as well steam, those close to Amanda Staveley remained convinced she would not be beaten by Mike Ashley.

Even after proving she had the funds to get near to Ashley’s asking price, Newcastle United’s owner was said to be wary. When she made an opening bid of £250 million last month, he was tempted to call the whole thing off. He suspected she was a chancer and he would not be bullied into selling for less than he intended.

Staveley, though, should not be under-estimated. She has played her hand superbly, softening Ashley up with the first bid, using his unpopularity with supporters against him, safe in the knowledge that he risks sparking another wave of protests and boycotts if he turns her down.

Then, with the January transfer window hurtling towards them, and the team in dire need of improvement after six defeats in seven games, she finally raised her offer to a level that would be enough to tempt him to sell up before the window opens.

There is no doubt he is tempted, but as things stand, she has still not got him to accept her second offer. A deal is close to being done, but the talk remains precarious.

Staveley always believed she would grind her opponent down. That her nerve was stronger. She assumes those who are desperate sell can only do so at a price set by the buyer. But Ashley is different. Just because he has put the club up for sale does not mean he will fold easily.

Should Staveley persuade him otherwise, it would be the latest in a series of impressive deals secured by the 44-year-old from Ripon in North Yorkshire, who is believed to control as much as £30 billion pounds from investors in the Middle East through her PCP Capital company.

The daughter of Robert Staveley, who built the Lightwater Valley theme park near her family home, Staveley moves in powerful and extremely wealthy circles, although her business career did not get off to the best of starts when her restaurant, set up after she had dropped out of her Modern Languages course at St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, failed.

However, it is during her time in the hospitality industry in the small village of Bottisham, nestled between Cambridge and Newmarket, that she built up a vast network of wealthy contacts, making full use of her knowledge of the horse racing world to befriend some of the biggest names in the sport, particularly those from United Arab Emirates.

A former girlfriend of Prince Andrew, she became a skilled dealer in stocks and shares, making a huge profit in the dot.com and biotech boom at the turn of the century.

Further success followed in a variety of projects through her first company Q.Ton, mainly on the back of lavish investment from the Middle East. She eventually moved to Dubai and it was there that she set up PCP Capital and first thought about buying a football club.

One of her first ventures with PCP was to assist Sheikh Mansour in his successful acquisition of Manchester City in 2010. And although she has twice failed to take control of Liverpool, she remained determined to buy a Premier League club and decided, after attending Newcastle’s game against Liverpool back in October, that it was the right one for her.