Newcastle's defensive crisis deepened yesterday in the wake of news that French defender Alain Goma has demanded a transfer.

The £4.5m defender has been told he can quit the club if the Geordies recoup the cash former boss Ruud Gullit splashed to buy him from Paris St Germain 18 months ago.

But it's likely Newcastle will have to bite the bullet and take yet another loss on a Gullit import.

Goma has been unhappy since the start of the season and boss Bobby Robson has been aware of the situation.

But the Frenchman has just been voted the club's player of the month and public confirmation of his unrest came as a shock yesterday.

Chairman Freddy Shepherd rapped: "We can't tolerate players who don't want to play for us. If they don't shape up then we must ship them out."

Goma and Spanish misfit Marcelino cost £10m between them but both defenders want to leave and that's the costliest part of Gullit's legacy.

Marcelino looks certain to be sold when the Spanish transfer window opens next week, although just how much Newcastle will recoup of that particular £6m investment is anybody's guess.

Robson must now decide whether to play Goma, who has missed the last two games through injury, at Birmingham tomorrow in the Worthington cup.

Warren Barton stepped in as an emergency centre back in Sunday's win over Liverpool while Robson continues to scour the market for replacements and he's ready to fill in again at St Andrews if required.

Robson has already off-loaded Steve Howey and Laurent Charvet and was forced to return Portuguese international Helder to Deportivo la Coruna.

Now, with Goma and Marcelino apparently heading out and Nikos Dabizas still a long way from fitness, the Newcastle boss will be forced to take urgent transfer action.

Full back Barton summed up the importance of the Liverpool victory when he said: "If we'd lost we would have dropped further into the bottom half of the table and it could have meant a long hard winter. It was a big result and hopefully it will prove a turning point.

"After being out for so long it's great to be back in the team - no matter where I play."

As if Robson didn't have enough on his plate he will anxiously check out Alan Shearer's back injury this morning before heading for Birmingham, the club that knocked Newcastle out of the competition last season.

l Leicester manager Peter Taylor has admitted he did contact Celtic about Foxes midfielder Neil Lennon.

Celtic boss Martin O'Neill saw a £4m bid rejected last week and then angrily refuted Taylor's claim it had unsettled the former Crewe player.

O'Neill insisted Leicester had come to him about a possible sale and Taylor confirmed: ''I did make the call to him about a month ago because at that stage Neil was not having a particularly good time. He came into my office to tell me he wasn't right and I felt the Celtic thing must have been on his mind.'