Newcastle United chairman Chris Mort has hit back at Sam Allardyce after his criticism of owner Mike Ashley.

The former Toon boss blamed billionaires chasing popularity rather than his own poor record for losing his shot at the big time. Allardyce also questioned the ambition on Tyneside after he was sacked to make way for Kevin Keegan.

But Mort told the People: "Huge billionaires, multi-millionaires can't stand pressure? That doesn't make any sense.

"I think these sorts of comments say more about Sam than anyone else. I would rather look forward than dwell on the direction in which Sam took this club.

"We invested more than £30million on acquiring new players last summer and increased the players' wage bill by more than £10 million.

"We wouldn't have done either of those things if we weren't going to back the manager.

"A combination of the style and the results, particularly in November and December, forced us to think about where we were heading. Even if we had come through that phase under Sam, I'd have been uncomfortable as to whether where he wanted to take us was where we wanted to go."