Exclusive: Newcastle's new bosses could be left with a ghost team

NE W C A S T L E ' S new owners and manager will face a massive job to halt the Magpie meltdown that has ripped the club apart in the wake of Kevin Keegan's departure.

That is the stark warning from a St James' Park dressing room that is still bristling with resentment.

The club has gagged the staff as Mike Ashley desperately tries to find a buyer, but Toon insiders warn that the new owners may be left with a "ghost team" as disillusioned stars look to quit.

Michael Owen, Nicky Butt, Mark Viduka, Shola Ameobi and keeper Steve Harper can all leave next year under the freedom of contract charter, while bad boy Joey Barton, Alan Smith, Oba Martins and Damien Duff have all been unsettled by attempts to sell them.

Our source believes the new owners could be tasked with replacing an entire team of Magpie stars. He said: "The size of the job facing the new owners is immense.

What they will buy is a football club that has self-destructed.

"There is a sense of amazement that Mike Ashley and the people he has brought in can get things so spectacularly wrong. The fans know the club is a mess, but it is a million times worse than any outsider thinks.

"The way players were put up for sale on deadline day and the undermining of Kevin Keegan [left] was the final straw for many people, especially the way they tried to assassinate his character after he'd gone. We are run by faceless people in London, who haven't got a clue about running a Premier League club.

There are pub teams that are run better than Newcastle.

"There will be a rush to get out and the new bosses could find they are left with a ghost team."