Larger than life Newcastle United fans and popular entertainment television presenters Ant and Dec tweeted that new Director of Football Joe Kinnear should “shut up” on Sunday.

The Kinnear controversy has rumbled on over the weekend thanks to a ‘reveal-all’ article in a Sunday newspaper where the former Wimbledon manager hit back at some of the criticism levelled at him in recent weeks.

But all this less-than-complimentary media coverage of their beloved club appears to be getting too much for Ant and Dec:

Joe Kinnear please just shut up! #enoughalready A

— antanddec (@antanddec) June 23, 2013

The Sunday Times article provided Kinnear with a platform from which he asserted that the now infamous TalkSport interview was a set-up:

I did it as a favour and I’m so disappointed.

I was on air and he switched me to the other presenter. I thought I was going to speak to Bobby about the old days. Yohan is a brilliant player and I didn’t pronounce his name right. But I didn’t say “Kebab”. I said “Keba”; they put the ‘b’ on it. They made a meal of it, no pun intended.

Kinnear also blasted Alan Shearer, who has been similarly critical of Kinnear’s appointment and subsequent media appearances, and branded the Geordie legend’s comments “diabolical”:

What Shearer says is diabolical. This is a guy who hasn’t got a clue about coaching.

The last game of the season, he came up with the master idea of playing Damien Duff at left back. Damien is one of the best left wingers around but can’t tackle. And we went down with an own goal from Damien. Shearer keeps slagging me off. He is being disrespectful. I’m entitled to fight back.