By Nick Raynor
July 14 2005

Newcastle Chairman Freddy Shepherd has told manager Graeme Souness that he must bring success to Tyneside.

Souness didn’t win any silverware in his first season with the Magpies, and the pressure is on the produce this year.

 

Shepherd said:

 

"He has been criticised but he knows what he wants and he is going after it. Now he knows it is time to produce.

 

"The bar has been raised considerably because we have been a top-six club for so long and that is why last season was such a major disappointment.

 

"We are out to put things right this season and I believe we will,"

 

"He is a footballing man who sees in players their good points and wants to bring them out. I have never heard him run down a player technically.

 

"We know it takes time for a new manager who wants to either change the players or the way the team play. Graeme wanted to alter both.

 

"Last season's 14th placing was the only failure in the last 10 years since John Hall moved in,

 

"The rest of the time, we have finished runners-up twice, third, fourth and fifth, played in the Champions League, in two FA Cup finals and a Uefa Cup semi-final.

 

"I know we have not won anything despite being so close, but we will. We will get there.

 

"Yes, we failed last season, but we played something like 54 games because we did so well in two cups and that caught up with us. That is not an excuse, it is a fact.

 

"We all made mistakes through good intentions, but I refuse to keep looking back. If you live in the past, you die in the past."