WHAT is it about the Geordie nation?

You meet some thoroughly wonderful intelligent people who hail from Newcastle upon Tyne, but hardly any of them appear to go to St James Park.

At least that´s the impression a neutral is entitled to get from watching the antics of the Toon Army.

What is this twaddle about Messiahs. Every time I hear some twerp announce that Shearer, like Keegan before him, is a Messiah, I have to laugh.

It reminds me of that Monty Python sketch where the mother of the bloke mistaken for the saviour of the world shouts at his followers: "He´s not the Messiah, he´s a very naughty boy."

An apt description for the lovely Alan Shearer who once had an FA charge against him for kicking someone in the head dropped just in time for him to play for England in a major tournament. What a nice bloke.

Now no-one with a brain would dispute that he was a fine centre forward and Blackburn would never have won the league in 2005 without him.

But great players do not always make great coaches.

Roy Keane´s insistence on ´speaking his mind´ may have made him a fine club captain, but his players eventually got sick of him knocking them.

Gareth Southgate was a fine player, but it hasn´t yet made him a fine manager.

Kevin Keegan may have inspired Newcastle to victory against Stoke in the FA Cup replay last season, but it took him 11 matches to record a Premier League win.

The truth is that Newcastle could have lost the initial cup match against Stoke and played terrible, uninspired football for 90 minutes.

I lost count of the number of times Nicky Butt and Alan Smith had the ball unchallenged and hit it straight out of play.

They were a poor team then and the players have hardly changed since then.

And can we have an end to this nonsense that Newcastle fans 'deserve better´ than they are watching. All fans believe that they deserve better, but we don´t always get it.

Most fans accept that they have to stick with their team through thick and thin, not boo their side when the going gets tough.

Yet that´s exactly what those supporters in black and white stripes have been doing this season.

Do fans who boo their players deserve to see wins? No they don´t.

Do Newcastle deserve to stay up this season after being a poor team for more than 18 months? The answer´s simple - only if they are good enough to get the points. If not they deserve the drop.