Joe Kinnear will not be appointed as Newcastle United manager again say club

The ongoing saga at Newcastle took a fresh twist today when the crisis-torn club was forced to deny that Joe Kinnear is on the way back.

Tyneside woke this morning to be greeted by a report that the 62-year-old's return as manager was imminent as owner Mike Ashley sought to bring some much-needed stability to the club.

However, club officials were swift to dismiss the story privately, and later issued an official denial.

A statement read: "Reports in the press this morning that Joe Kinnear is to be appointed as Newcastle United manager are not true.

"The position remains that the club is still in the market to be sold and is still negotiating with prospective buyers."

A decision to turn to Kinnear once again would have delivered a potentially fatal snub to the hopes of Alan Shearer, who has been waiting increasingly impatiently on the sidelines as the clock runs down towards the start of a season for which, despite the best efforts of caretaker Chris Hughton on the training field, a shell-shocked squad is ill prepared.

Indeed, there has been talk of a players' revolt if matters off the pitch are not resolved swiftly with several men ready to cut their losses and head out of St James' Park.

That would be no great hardship if those ready to jump ship were among the players Shearer would like to get rid of - and perhaps more importantly, off a wage bill which still amounts to around £62million a year.

But worryingly, it is understood that the likes of Steven Taylor and Habib Beye, who had previously stated their desire to stay and work under the 38-year-old, have become increasingly unsettled, while Sebastien Bassong has made little secret of his desire to find a new club as a matter of urgency.

Ashley's hands are tied to an extent by the fact that several of the consortia looking to take the club off his hands are insisting they should appoint a new manager.

However, with no deal in place despite managing director Derek Llambias' insistence that "more than two" of them have met the sportswear magnate's £100million asking price, there seems little immediate prospect of a decision being taken.

But there is belatedly a growing realisation that something needs to be done quickly if the forthcoming season is not to be a write-off before it starts and in that respect, Kinnear is at least available after recovering from the heart surgery which ended his reign prematurely in February.

The speculation over his return came after he offered his own assessment of his previous spell at the helm to Irish journalists over the weekend.

He reportedly said: "Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer, the Messiahs, got nine points between them.

"When I went into hospital, we were 13th with 13 games left. Everything was going in our favour.

"All the other clubs were getting beat, and we were on a great run. It was looking an absolute doddle."

Behind the scenes, the sale process is continuing, but at snail's pace, and the simple fact is that none of the interested parties have produced the hard cash to move things on to the decisive point.

In the circumstances, the waiting game will continue either until they do, or Ashley, as he did in December last year, decides to bite the bullet and do something about it himself.

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