WHEN Newcastle United take on Fulham in their penultimate game of the season this afternoon, it is safe to say the chips will be down.

Or at least they would be if they hadn’t become a taboo subject in the last two months. Since Alan Shearer rejoined the club as manager in late March, the chips have been well and truly off the table.

“Alan is from Newcastle,”

said Steven Taylor, who has become an adopted Geordie since he left his Greenwich birthplace at the age of two.

“He is from Newcastle, he knows people throughout Newcastle and he will find out anything. He’s like Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United – you can’t get away with anything.

“If I go into a restaurant now, I’m thinking, ‘He knows what I’m eating. Will I order chips or not?’ I’m a bit wary now. If someone looks at me, I’m thinking, ‘Does he know where I’m going, the toilet?’ He finds out anything.

“Because we’re from the same area of living, in the supermarket there’s no sweets or anything like that. You’re thinking, ‘Is he going to find out? Will he see the cameras?’ He’s got eyes everywhere, contacts.”

Despite only arriving on a temporary basis when he replaced caretaker boss Chris Hughton a month-and-a-half ago, Shearer’s reign has already come to be associated with a strict disciplinary clampdown.

The former Magpies skipper introduced a list of ‘12 commandments’ in an attempt to improve punctuality and time keeping, and was the driving force behind the decision to suspend disgraced midfielder Joey Barton following his dismissal and dressing-room outburst at Anfield.

After years of lurching from one crisis to the next, Newcastle is beginning to feel like a club with a sense of responsibility and pride again, and while there have been suggestions that some players are unhappy with Shearer’s heavy-handed approach, Taylor insists he has the support of the dressing room as he attempts to introduce a radical cultural change.

“I think we needed a kick up the backside,” said the defender, who returned from a two-week lay-off in Monday’s 3-1 win over Middlesbrough.

“If we have people now who are not performing, then they’ll not be in the team. The name doesn’t matter, he has proved that.

“The club is run properly now, it’s definitely being run how it should be, how it used to be. Under Bobby Robson, there was a strict regime where the players ate together.

After he left, though, some people used to train and go straight home.

“Now, they eat together and I think that’s what we’ve been missing. You see more talking together just from having that extra half-hour as a team.

“Everyone is in early because you’re worried about the fines – ten per cent of your wages. Players used to be strolling in, and a £100 fine wasn’t hurting them. It’s getting serious with the fines now though and players are making sure they’re in damn early.”

As well as demanding an improvement in time keeping, Shearer has also sought to improve the standard of Newcastle’s training sessions.

The players have been training with heart monitors in the last three weeks, a development that allows the club’s medical staff to identify exactly how much work an individual is getting through in a designated slot.

Suddenly, there is no room for slackers, and Taylor admits that the intensity of the club’s training-ground work has increased markedly as a result.

“You’re going to work hard,” he said. “It’s a strict regime and it’s given a lot of players a kick up the backside.

You can’t get away with anything.

“There are heart monitors now so, after training, it can be checked who’s worked hard and who hasn’t. If you haven’t been working hard, he’ll (Shearer) say, ‘Listen, you’re coming in this afternoon’.

“Everyone’s training so hard now. There’s a tempo that’s high and everyone’s at it. We are playing for our places and there’s competition now. Players are coming back and you want to make sure you’re in the team.”

After his performance in Monday’s victory over Middlesbrough, Taylor is sure to be in the team for this afternoon’s game with Fulham, a match that could secure Newcastle’s Premier League status ahead of next weekend’s final-day clash with Aston Villa.

Fulham have a good record on Tyneside – they have lost just one of their last four matches at Gallowgate – and under the tutelage of the experienced Roy Hodgson, the Cottagers have emerged as genuine contenders for next season’s Europa League.

They boast a more potent attack than Middlesbrough, but Taylor has urged his team-mates not to become fixated on the quality of their opponents.

If Newcastle put their own house in order, the defender is confident they will win the game.

“Fulham might be harder (than Middlesbrough), but we have to rely on ourselves,” he said.

“We have to give a bit more because we know how much it means for our futures.

“We don’t want to be Championship players – we are Premier League players and that’s how we want it to stay.

“Our biggest problem is worrying about others. But against Middlesbrough we never thought that, it was down to ourselves.”