AN angry Freddy Shepherd has claimed that Newcastle midfielder Charles N'Zogbia needs to have his "backside smacked" after petulantly refusing to sit on the substitutes' bench at the weekend.

Unhappy at being named among the substitutes at Vicarage Road, N'Zogbia spent the pre-match tactical meeting sending text messages on his mobile phone before he stormed out of the ground when he was eventually omitted from the 16-man squad.

The Frenchman's indisciplined display followed hot on the heels of Obafemi Martins' insistence that he could not undergo a pre-match fitness test because of a knee injury, and led senior midfielder Nicky Butt to publicly question the attitude of some of his team-mates.

Martins has subsequently spoken to Shepherd to claim that his failure to appear at Watford was a "misunderstanding".

But N'Zogbia's subsequent silence has fuelled Shepherd's fury, and led the Magpies chairman to criticise the attitude of a player whose Newcastle career now appears to be at an end.

"The events of last Sunday were very disappointing," he said. "Oba has been on the phone and said it was a complete misunderstanding and, until we see him face to face, I cannot really comment on that one.

"But Charles N'Zogbia wants his backside smacked. It's absolutely ridiculous. A young man like him who has been here all this time trying to play the big star - he should do it on the field before he tries to do it off it."

To many, Newcastle have suffered from a lack of authority for the best part of a decade.

Kieron Dyer famously refused to play on the right of midfield under Sir Bobby Robson, both Craig Bellamy and Laurent Robert suffered frequent run-ins with Graeme Souness, and Glenn Roeder failed to quell a surge in player power that has hampered efforts all season.

Sam Allardyce is the latest figure to have been charged with the task of controlling the Magpies' miscreants and, while he has claimed that everybody is starting with a clean slate, the former Bolton boss has already insisted that he will accept no indiscipline.

Having previously worked with the likes of Nicolas Anelka and El-Hadji Diouf, Allardyce has proved adept at taming personalities whose temperament does not sit easily with their talent.

And with a major rebuilding programme already planned for this summer, Shepherd has admitted that the 52-year-old's reputation as a disciplinarian was a major factor in his appointment at Newcastle.

"Sam is very much a northerner and he encapsulates what the true Geordie supporter is," said Shepherd, who revealed that he had not paid Bolton any compensation to secure Allardyce's services. "He's very enthusiastic, and he's very down to earth - that's the main thing.

"I don't think he'll take any of the kind of back-chat that we've seen in the last couple of days."

Confirmation of Allardyce's appointment ends a three-year courtship that began with the dismissal of Robson.

Back then, the Midlander refused to break his contract at the Reebok Stadium, a stance that Shepherd reluctantly accepted.

Yesterday, he finally signed a three-year deal with the Magpies and, after appointing seven different managers in the last decade, Shepherd is hoping that Allardyce is the final managerial face of his St James' Park reign.

"I hope this is my last managerial appointment, of course I do," said the chairman. "But I don't know what the future holds.

"In 2004, it was well known that we tried to get him. At the time, it wasn't possible because of contractual arrangements at Bolton, which was fine, I didn't have any problem with that.

"We wanted him to replace Bob and we tried our best to get him. Really, we've been trying to get him ever since. We've been monitoring the situation. When he resigned from Bolton, it was too good an opportunity not to give it 100 per cent.

"I was very impressed with what he did at Bolton. He made it quite clear that he could only work with the tools he had and he's already seen the quality players that we have here at Newcastle.

"That's no disrespect to Bolton - they've got some great players too - but they've played to the best of their ability and that's what we need to do here at Newcastle."

Shepherd has already pledged to back his new manager in the transfer market and, perhaps more importantly, the Magpies chief has also promised to support Allardyce's plans for a complete restructuring of Newcastle's backroom set-up.

"Sam has my blessing to implement the same sort of system he had at Bolton," he added. "That's the whole idea.

"It would take an idiot not to realise the problems we've had with injuries this season. The stats are something like 340 player days lost to injury at Newcastle and something like 72 at Bolton.

"We lost five to one to Bolton in terms of injuries. We've got the Premiership record for injuries, which isn't the best one to have, so of course he's going to bring his medical staff in.

"If Bolton can afford it, so can we, but that type of system takes time to bear fruit, so we have to be patient.