Keegan: Silverware is my target

May 11 2008 by Neil Farrington, Sunday Sun

KEVIN KEEGAN has reiterated that breaking into the Premier League Big Four was NOT a target he was set by Mike Ashley on returning to Newcastle.

And the United manager, pictured right, who was rebuked by owner Ashley for insisting the club is a “million miles” from a top-four finish, last night vowed to succeed in the challenge he WAS set . . .

By winning Newcastle a trophy in the next three years.

What’s more, Keegan insisted he would be willing to sacrifice league points to do it.

He said: “I asked him (Ashley) what he wanted for his club, and he said: ‘I’d like to win a trophy in the next three years’. That’s what I’m going to try to do.”

And by any means possible, it seems.

Keegan added: “You might get where a manager rests players for a league match because they’re pretty much in the top half, and they put their strongest side out in the Carling Cup.

“Spurs have had a great season — because they won the Carling Cup.”

Meanwhile, reports in France claim Newcastle AND Middlesbrough are tracking Valenciennes’ 29-year-old Moroccan defender Abdeslam Ouaddou, who spent a two-year spell with Fulham from 2001.