Former Newcastle United chairman Freddy Shepherd says Mike Ashley can expect a furious backlash from fans over the Kevin Keegan farce.

"I don't know the ins and outs but I know one thing; you can beat teams but you can't beat the fans," Shepherd told the Daily Mail.

"At the moment they are right behind Kevin and he's won, whatever happens.

"When I was there with Kevin we had a simple strategy. Kevin identified the players and we tried to get the money to buy them. I don't know what's happening with Mike's structure, whether it's fallen apart, but I worked with Kevin for five years and he was fantastic."