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Joe Kinnear took Newcastle manager Alan Pardew to meet owner Mike Ashley in topless resort St Tropez and assured him: “I’ve got your back covered.”

Director of football Kinnear has been dismayed by the “negativity” which has engulfed the Toon’s difficult start to the season.

And he flew home from a scouting mission in Europe last night to learn stewards had removed a banner proclaiming him as “clown of the comedy club” at the goalless impasse with West Ham at St James’ Park on Saturday.

But Kinnear, 66, refuses to become the fall-guy for Newcastle’s problems, which were accelerated by Arsenal’s £10million bid for midfielder Yohan Cabaye on the eve of a heavy opening defeat at Manchester City.

In a frank, no-holds-barred interview with Mirror Sport, Kinnear insisted: “I don’t understand where the negativity has come from – we are two games into a 38-game season and already the doom-and-gloom merchants are looking for a scapegoat.

“Alan Pardew has signed 16 players costing £60m in the last two years, Newcastle United’s wage bill is now comfortably in the top 10 in the country, and he will continue to get all the support the club can reasonably provide.

“Last week we flew to Nice, and we were met by a private helicopter transfer to Mike Ashley’s yacht off St Tropez, and we spent seven hours thrashing out every idea, and how we plan to take the club forward.

“I listened to every word Alan and the owner had to say – along with chief scout Graham Carr, who was also there – and we talked about the next stage for Newcastle United and where we wanted to go.

“Before the season started, we had sat down and agreed the squad was big enough, and strong enough, to finish in the top half of the table. But we are working together – not plotting against each other.

“There seems to be a perception, from outside the club, that we are at loggerheads, but I don’t know why people are jumping on the bandwagon because it is a false picture.”

(Image: Serena Taylor)

The only time Kinnear has acted alone, in terms of player recruitment, was to seal the season-long loan deal which brought France striker Loic Remy to Tyneside earlier this month.

And he did so in the knowledge that QPR had pipped Pardew in the £8m race for Remy last January.

Kinnear admitted: “I sanctioned the one-year loan deal for Loic Remy, and if it goes pear-shaped I will take responsibility for it.

“But if he scores goals and does well for us, Alan will be happy with our end of the deal; the player will be happy because he will come into contention for a World Cup place with France; and if both those things happen, Remy will go back to QPR as a World Cup player with a higher value than when he joined them, so everyone will come out of it well.”

Kinnear’s return in June to ­the Newcastle, where his brief stint as manager was curtailed by a heart problem in 2009, was slammed as a backward step by supporters.

His second coming was immediately laid open to ridicule when he gave a car-crash radio interview in which he pronounced the names of players wrongly and even referred to former managing director Derek Llambias as “Derek Lambisi.”

He conceded: “That gave people a stick to beat me with, but my ­intentions for the club are impeccable and we are working incredibly hard – together – to try and deliver good results on the pitch.”