Newcastle director Joe Kinnear ridiculed after disastrous 'Yohan Kebab' radio interview
Newcastle United's new director of football has risked alienating the club's fans completely by claiming to have "more intelligence than them" during a calamitous radio interview in which he mispronounced the names of the team's star players.
Joe Kinnear's appointment was confirmed by club bosses on Tuesday but the man himself announced his new job on Sky Sports News on Sunday and then on TalkSPORT radio on Monday night.
Irate fans immediately called into the radio programme to blast the 66-year-old's efforts at pronouncing some of the club's biggest names.
His attempt at Yohan Cabaye - "Yohan Kebab" - sparked enough tweets from dissenting fans for the topic to trend on Twitter.
Shola Ameobi - a Newcastle player for 13 years (including during Kinnear's brief stint as manager) - was pronounced "Shola Amamobi", prompting this tweet from the striker's younger brother:
Jonas Gutierrez was "Goalterez", Hatem Ben Arfa was both "Ben Afree" and "Ben Afra" and Papiss Cissé was "Sissee".
When asked by talkSPORT what he would say to unhappy fans, he said: "To all the fans who don't agree with this decision, shall I bring [Derek] Llambeezi [Llambias, managing director] back in? What do you want? What do they want?"
He then made a series of audacious claims about his contacts within game.
"I've spent my whole life talking to Alex Ferguson, week in, week out," he told the show's presenters.
"I can pick the phone up at any time of the day and speak to Arsene Wenger, any manager in the league."
His closing remarks included saying that critical fans were "talking out of their backsides, a load of tosh.
"I'm not accepting it, as simple as that. I have certainly got more intelligence than them, that's a fact."
He also appeared to suggest he had signed goalkeeper Tim Krul and defender James Perch - players that respectively joined the club before and after his six-month stint as club manager in the 2008-09 season.
Retired striker John Hartson later rebuffed a Kinnear claim that he had been bought by him at Wimbledon.
Kinnear's first time on Tyneside was overshadowed by a foul-mouthed rant at journalists, accusing them of having an agenda against him.
His tenure as manager ended due to a heart attack and Newcastle were relegated at the end of the season.