So the madness continues.

After just 239 days and 24 games Sam Allardyce departs Newcastle and the most misguided football club in Britain once again searches for a new manager.

Actually misguided is not the word for it. It is worse than that. It borders on lunacy.

Remember, this is the club which sacked Sir Bobby Robson after five years in which he had saved them from the ignominy of relegation and taken them to a Champions League spot.

It is the club which has a habit of sacking managers just weeks into a new season.

This time the parting, accompanied by that catch-all phrase "by mutual agreement", has come just days into a new year and in the midst of a transfer window which could have been the club's salvation.

Allardyce needed time. Anyone who sips from the Tyneside chalice needs time because it is a club with a passionate following in the land but one which labours under the delusion that somehow, even though it has not won a domestic trophy since 1955, it has a right to compete with the real Premier League giants of Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool.

Yes, you read that right, 1955. The year Winston Churchill completed his second spell as British prime minister.

In the 52 years which have passed since that FA Cup triumph never have so many Geordies been let down by so many footballers, so many managers and so many owners.

But the leaving of Allardyce when he appeared to have ridden the worst of the storm is surely the nadir.

True, he was not the choice of billionaire owner Mike Ashley. Instead, Allardyce formed part of the legacy left to the club by the departure of former chairman Freddy Shepherd.

As such he was always on shifting sands with Ashley sitting in his black and white replica shirt amid the Geordie faithful, hearing at first hand the pain as each desperate week went by.

The biggest criticism of Allardyce among the fans, few of whom welcomed his arrival, was that he was a long ball merchant. A pragmatic manager. A man who had performed creditably with Bolton via little more than muscle and determination.

But he was not a manager of vision or adventure. Not a man to thrill the Geordie footballing soul as Kevin Keegan had done a decade before.

Those critics were correct. But neither did Allardyce have the players or money to throw at a side which started the season at full throttle but who now reside in 11th place in the league table with 26 points, 24 behind leaders Arsenal but crucially nine points above the relegation zone.

That's a zone containing close rivals Sunderland on 17 points with their other north-east rivals Middlesbrough only three points better off.

It is what makes the news of Allardyce's leaving so senseless. Newcastle were not going down. They were not desperate.

When Allardyce had his best players all fit and firing, especially Michael Owen and Damien Duff, and had purchased a creative midfielder there was every chance stability could have been maintained.

But no, panic it seems is in the genes where football matters are concerned on Tyneside.

And so the clamour now will be for Alan Shearer to come in and work a 'miracle' when he has no managerial experience and when he would be a fool to put his legend on the line in such fractious circumstances.

The Premier League is no place for a rookie manager at such a volatile club.

However, the BBC reported last night that sources close to Shearer - who works for the corporation as a pundit - were saying he was extremely unlikely to succeed Allardyce at Newcastle.

Instead, Portsmouth boss Harry Redknapp was soon installed as favourite to take over.

Ashley and chairman Chris Mort must know they will have to deliver a strong character, a man of charisma and intelligence. A man with a shrewd eye for a footballer because there is much wheeling and dealing to be done to turn St James' Park into the thrill centre for which all Newcastle fans yearn.

The usual names will be bandied around. Men such as Jose Mourinho and Jurgen Klinsmann.

But, unless Ashley is prepared to bankroll the club in the manner of Roman Abramovich at Chelsea - and nothing suggests that is the case - there are no guarantees.

A month ago, after successive heavy home defeats, the fans poured their vitriol on Allardyce. "You don't know what you're doing," they chanted.

Isn't that just about the perfect phrase to sum up a proud but misguided football club?

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