Ashley's intentions are clearly short-term - to recoup every pound he's ploughed into the club and bail out. He obviously views selling assets and operating on a shoestring as the most viable means of achieving this, and not squad strengthening and aiming for Europe/trophy. And with Hughton gone and his puppet Pardew at the helm, he's got a manager he can walk all over to do this.
The best we can hope for IMO is making a good profit on the like of Tiote, Enrique etc, survival in the Prem and Ashley finally getting the money he wants to sell up.