Joe Kinnear’s appointment has done little to ease the sense of chaos at Newcastle United. The team are in freefall, the club are up for sale, the new interim manager is banned from the touchline and unable to clarify the length of his contract, but Kinnear has issued a stout defence of his reputation. “I’m no mug,” he said.

The FA confirmed yesterday that Kinnear is serving a two-match suspension from the dugout that lingers from his unsuccessful spell at Nottingham Forest in 2004, when he called a referee “Coco the Clown”. The Irishman watched Newcastle’s 2-1 defeat by Blackburn Rovers on Saturday from the directors’ box and will do the same for his side’s visit to Goodison Park on Sunday.

Kinnear, who admitted he had not informed Mike Ashley, the Newcastle owner, about his ban before accepting the role, will not be permitted to coach from the touchline until the home match against Manchester City on October 20. On Friday, the club announced that the 61-year-old had been hired only on a short-term deal “until the end of October”, but Kinnear has contradicted that statement.

The former Wimbledon manager said that he had “signed a bit of paper”, but was vague regarding the terms of reference. “It is between six and eight games,” he said. His first official engagement will be the Everton fixture; a six-match tenure would take him to Fulham on November 9 and eight would leave him in charge at Chelsea on November 22.

That position may change if Ashley is able to sell the club and a South African consortium is vying with a Nigerian group to assume control. Kinnear has said that Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer were likely to form a managerial partnership in the event of a takeover, but Shearer’s response was withering. “I don’t know where that’s come from,” he said. “I don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Kinnear has sympathy for Ashley, his underfire employer. “He’s had a lot of flak,” he said. “He is someone who has bought a football club, put a lot of money into it and he can’t come to watch his own club.” Ashley’s claims that he has been warned not to attend matches because of safety reasons have been denied by police.

Kinnear, who returned to London on Saturday, is unconcerned by the negative reaction to his hiring. “I love being a winner,” he said. “Why should I take anything from anyone else? I stand up for myself. Every second, there’s always someone who wants to stab you in the back.

“That is the life we have chosen, that is the life we are in, but I won’t lose any sleep over it. Why should I let stuff said about me before I got here spoil my time? B*****ks to that. It is a bit unfair because there is no reason for it. I am going to do the best job I can and get as much experience as I can. Every second I turn a corner, it is ‘Kevin Keegan’.” Newcastle have lost five matches in succession and Kinnear will try to encourage the ‘Crazy Gang’ mentality he fostered at Wimbledon in a “very quiet” dressing-room. “I could certainly educate a few of the players in not doing silly things and being more professional on the pitch,” he said.

The Blackburn game was watched by a crowd of 44,935, which is significantly below capacity; optimism is not rife. “Hopefully, Joe can give us a thing or two, but the first thing I’d suggest we need is a bit of confidence,” Michael Owen, the captain, said.