After defeat to Liverpool on Saturday, Sam Allardyce remains confident he has the backing of Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley and chairman Chris Mort.

"I spoke to Mike before the game," Allardyce said of Ashley, "I spoke to the chairman as well. We speak all the time. Some people are coming up with disruptive rumours as always, Chinese whispers, and that's bound to be the case and it's not good, is it?

"But we've only just come together and I never said to them that it would be easy. I don't think they thought it would be. We've taken over a club and we have to try to move it forward to where it wants to go."

Shay Given spoke for the dressing room when he said: "I have been here 10 years, but for some of the new players that was a lesson about the expectation levels here. That performance was right down there with the worst of them."