JOE Kinnear last night accused Charles N’Zogbia of “living in a fantasy world”, and claimed Newcastle’s squad is stronger as a result of his January transfer dealings.

Kinnear refused to be drawn into a war of words with former goalkeeper Shay Given, who claimed the Magpies had been “happy to take the money” when Manchester City made a bid for his services during his introductory press conference at Eastlands.

But the Irishman was only too happy to respond to N’- Zogbia’s accusation that Newcastle were a “shambles”, branding the Frenchman a fantasist whose position at St James’ Park had become untenable thanks to his constant attempts to engineer a move away from Tyneside.

“He lives in a fantasy world and I told him so,” said Kinnear, who eventually persuaded Wigan boss Steve Bruce to part with £6m plus the versatile Ryan Taylor in order to secure N’Zogbia’s services.

“There wasn’t a day when he didn’t come in with some mickey-mouse story about a club that wanted him.

“First of all, he came in and told me Arsenal wanted to buy him. So I spoke to Arsenal personally and said to him, ‘They don’t want you so can we put it to bed now?’ “Then the next time it was Aston Villa. So I spoke to Martin O’Neill and sure enough Villa weren’t interested either.

“Then the next week it was Man U, and the week after that it was Real Madrid. Then it was Lyon.

“Each time he came in, he made it clear he did not want to be at the club, so in the end there was only one thing I could do – send him to Wigan.”

By selling N’Zogbia and Given, Kinnear was able to raise around £14m in transfer fees, but only £4m of that went out in the opposite direction, to fund the purchase of Kevin Nolan from Bolton.

Newcastle attempted a whirlwind recruitment drive on transfer-deadline day, tabling £8m bids for Manchester City midfielder Michael Johnson and Sunderland playmaker Kieran Richardson, and inquiring about Sporting Lisbon’s Miguel Veloso.

But none of the deals came to fruition, leading to accusations that the Magpies should have made their moves at the start of the window rather than in the final five hours.

Kinnear, who revealed that Newcastle had tried to include Johnson in the Given deal, refutes the criticism, claiming managing director Derek Llambias had tabled a series of bids in the opening week of the window, only for them all to fail.

“There were offers at the start of the window, they just weren’t high enough,” he said.

“We made about eight offers in the first week, but the offers were all well short of what they were looking for.

“(Toulouse full-back, Albin) Ebondo comes to mind. We thought we had a deal for £3m, and Dennis (Wise) and Lee (Charnley), our secretary, went out there. They spent three days talking to Toulouse and then on the final day, when we were about to put pen to paper, they decided they wanted £6m. It became a wasted journey.

“Then on the final day, the players we chased didn’t accept our offers. We tried as hard as we could to get two more on Monday, but they let us know very late in the day.

They didn’t leave us with time to do anything else once the window was going to close. It was disappointing.”

Nevertheless, Kinnear remains satisfied with the business he was able to conduct during January. Free signing Peter Lovenkrands arrived to accompany Nolan and Taylor, and with Obafemi Martins, Mark Viduka and Alan Smith all expected to return for tomorrow’s game at West Brom, Kinnear insists Newcastle are in a much better shape.

“I think the squad is stronger because of everything that happened in January,”

he said.

“It would have been even better if I had been able to bring Michael and Kieran in, but I still think we’re stronger than we were.

“The players that are coming back now will make a massive difference. It’s been very thin and that’s the reason why we are where we are in the table. But now some of the players are back, I think we’re fine.”