FORMER Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd insists Mike Ashley is solely to blame for the club's relegation plight and urged the current regime to stop whingeing.

Shepherd sold the club to Ashley nearly two years ago having himself suffered criticism for his running of the club.

Since then, however, the Magpies have lurched from crisis to crisis and are staring relegation in the face heading into the final weekend of the Premier League season.

And Shepherd told The Sun: "Relegation would be an absolute disaster in terms of corporate and the crowd.

"It took us 12-15 years to get a big ground, a great academy and a good set of players. We left and all of a sudden there's a disaster. And you can't make a profit out of a disaster.

"One thing that is really upsetting is the whingeing that is going on. They blame everyone, but themselves.

"They have to look at themselves and say what have we done wrong here and not start blaming other people.

"It annoys me that they seem to blame me all the time.

Every year we were there we made a profit. There is only one person to blame and that's the guy who decides who is going to run the club.

"Lots of people can buy football clubs but not many can run them."