Kevin Keegan says Newcastle need to win the 10-team league at the foot of the Premier League to avoid relegation - but Will Tidey believes the 'Geordie Messiah' might be losing his touch.

Cast your mind back to his seminal tirade in 1996, and Kevin Keegan"s recent attempts at impassioned motivational speaking appear strangely ambivalent by comparison. As Paul Weller once sang, "Has your fire really gone out?"

Judging by his stance this morning, the answer would appear to be...not sure.

Newcastle United may lie three points from the relegation zone, without a win in their last 12 Premier League outings - a predicament literally screaming out for a call-to-arms of Churchillian proportions - but Keegan stopped short of guaranteeing the club's survival.

"When you are in a situation, whether it is the top of the table or bottom of the table, you always look at other people's results - but the one thing you have always go to focus on is your own," he said.

"It is no good to keep looking and thinking they have lost and or they have drawn there, if you're not winning yourself. We have told the players that we have a 10-game season now, 10 matches left, these are the fixtures we have at home, these are what we have away.

"We are focusing on winning the 10-man league we are in down the bottom."

Hardly the stuff to get Toon fans frothing at the mouth, is it? One can't help think the Keegan of old will need to appear, and swiftly, if Newcastle are to avoid the drop.

Will Tidey / Eurosport