Rob Lee believes Mike Ashley would struggle to attract a new manager to Newcastle and claims he might keep Alan Pardew in charge just to annoy the fans!

The Toon Army have made it clear they want Pardew sacked, and speculation he would be sacked reached fever pitch on Monday night following defeat at Stoke.

talkSPORT understands, however, Ashley has no plans to remove Pardew from the hot-seat – and Lee insists if he did, he would find it tough to replace him with a big-name boss.

He told the Colin Murray show: “If you change, who are you going to change him [Pardew] for? With Ashley pulling the purse strings what manager is going work for him under the conditions Pardew is working under?

“Pardew is in a tough position. He’s taken a lot of flak for Mike Ashley and he continues to do so.

“There seems to be a policy at the club about the players they buy – they have to be under a certain age and earning a certain amount of money – and, if you do that, you get what you pay for. They’ve got away with it a bit in recent years by going to France, but you can’t do it all the time. You need players who have played in the Premier League, which they’ve not done.

“The players they buy might be good players in the future but the Premier League is so different to foreign leagues and it takes them a long time to get used to it. And unfortunately, Pardew hasn’t got that amount of time.

“Players join Newcastle now to go into the shop window and get sold to a top club in London. They don’t really know what Newcastle is all about, or even where Newcastle is! They think it’s a Premier League club and it will get them seen. There are not enough players who want to play for Newcastle and know what Newcastle is all about.

“Pardew takes a lot of stick for him – some justified, some not – and surely he would know he needs Premier League players and goalscorers. They don’t look like scoring goals and they’ve got a leaky defence. And if you let them in at one end and don’t score them at the other, you’re going to be in relegation trouble.

“This has been coming for a long time. At a normal club, when a chairman gets stick from the fans he sacks the manager. But it’s not a normal club. Ashley takes stick and has been taking it almost since he got there, but it doesn’t bother him. He does exactly what he wants to do.

“He’ll probably go against what the Newcastle fans want and who else will work for him under those circumstances? You haven’t got much money, you can only pay players a certain amount of money and they must be under the age of 24. Your hands are tied before you start.”