Shepherd backing Big Sam's revolution

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Shepherd will leave Allardyce to talk to Michael Owen amid speculation he could leave the club as well as dressing room rebels Obafemi Martins and Charles N'Zogbia, but he knows there is no time to waste as the club prepares to bounce back from a dreadful injury-plagued season which fell far short of expectations on Tyneside.

Shepherd said: "It was important to get someone in quickly. It is a revolving door and when Glenn (Roeder) resigned, we did not have much time. We have got the whole summer to plan ahead and believe me, we will need every minute of every day to do that."

Shepherd has picked up a reputation as a sacking chairman, although he insists he has only ever wielded the axe twice to dismiss Sir Bobby Robson and Graeme Souness.

However, the fact remains Allardyce is the sixth man in the post during Shepherd's 10-year-reign and the fifth he has appointed, and that is a statistic from which he takes little pleasure.

Shepherd gave Roeder the job on a groundswell of popular opinion after his heroics as caretaker, and was desperate for him to be the man to finally bring success back to St James' Park. But like so many managers before him, it simply did not work out that way.

Shepherd said: "Every manager who has come here has always done his best, or tried to do his best. Nobody came here and tried to do their worst. It just has not worked out for them. It is quite simple.

"Glenn deserved a chance after last season and we gave him that chance, but it did not work out for him for various reasons which everybody knows."

Injuries were a depressing feature of Roeder's tenure and although many of them were unavoidable - like Owen's metatarsal fracture and knee ligament rupture - Allardyce will adopt a scientific approach in an effort to eradicate more preventable fitness concerns.

He said: "There are lots of little aspects the players have to take care of, and if they do that, they will get fitter and stronger and then they will stay fitter longer to play football, which is what they are paid to do."