Newcastle United boss Kevin Keegan has warned they will have to re-adjust their sights over the club's title ambitions.

"Mr Ashley said he wanted to win something in three-and-a-half years," Keegan told reporters. "When we sit down in the next few weeks we will see how desperate he is to win something in that time.

"That will become clear when we see the players this club will go after in the summer. We haven't had that conversation yet.

"It's a different world now compared to when I first came here as a manager.

"Without showing any disrespect to my players I think you could take any one of the players on the benches of the top four and they would be five of the first six names on the team sheet at most other clubs.

"It's not practical or feasible for a manager of Newcastle United to say what I said before, 'Watch out Sir Alex, we are after your title'.

"They have gone on and in many respects we have gone backwards.

"You hope you could appeal to some of the players who go to the top four clubs and don't play every week. We need four or five players, but if you are clever that doesn't need to cost a lot of money. You can get Bosmans worth £10m, so we will see what we can do there too.

"We can go for the top players, but we can't offer them European football - and we can't offer them a top-four finish next season.

"Outside of the top eight would be unacceptable. We've got a group of teams such as Spurs, Villa and Everton we can challenge, but not the top four.

"If you forget ability and look at the size of the club, the turnover, the fan base and take everything into consideration we should finish fifth to eighth."