“I wasn’t forced out but the fans linked me 100 per cent with (owner) Mike Ashley,” he says. “I left to go to Palace and people say to me ‘oh, you were great at Newcastle but I am sorry how it ended’. Well it wasn’t sorry how it ended. I left them ninth! I wasn’t sacked. I needed to go because it was right for the football club. It didn’t matter whether I finished sixth that year, the fans were not accepting me.
Fuck me.