Amid the relief and celebrations at avoiding relegation on the final day of the season, there was still rancour and division at St James’ Park.

Following the 2-0 win over West Ham on Sunday afternoon, Newcastle’s manager John Carver punched the air, owner Mike Ashley grinned in the stands, and the players hugged each other on the pitch, the wearied Newcastle fans were not in the mood to forgive, and forget the unrelenting misery of the last five months.

“Get out of our club, get out of our club,” the Newcastle fans chanted with passion, as reported by the BBC, towards the hated Ashley.

These fans wanted the Newcastle hierarchy to understand one win against a disinterested West Ham, incredibly only the club’s third win since the turn of the year, changed absolutely nothing.

Next season Newcastle United will be a Premier League club, but unless there is an entirely different approach, they will face another season hovering around the relegation zone.

Newcastle’s troubles this season have been self-inflicted, and stem from their policy of embracing, and even accepting, mediocrity.

Their season has been a study in what happens if a club seemingly gives up and stops trying, both on the pitch and in the boardroom.

The club have gradually expelled the very notion of being ambitious or aspirational, which have almost become dangerous and dirty words.

Instead the onus is on getting by, merely remaining in the Premier League, and showing no interest in the League Cup or the FA Cup.

This has turned Newcastle, in the memorable words of the Newcastle fanzine editor Michael Martin, via the Guardian, in to “a zombie club, half alive, half dead, going nowhere.”

It is an unusual spectacle in the Premier League where the mantra amongst every club is to get bigger and better; to seek to climb the table, and grasp some silverware along the way.

Last season Newcastle allowed their best player Yohan Cabaye to leave at the end of the January transfer window, and refused to replace him, leading to a run of 11 defeats in their final 15 league games.

They didn’t learn their lesson, and this season made an even worse decision by allowing Alan Pardew to leave for Crystal Palace and replacing him with John Carver.

Under Carver, Newcastle lost 12 of their 19 Premier League games to ensure a slide down the table that left them vulnerable to relegation until the final five minutes of the season.

If you fail to replenish your playing squad, and also your manager, with similar quality, then you are simply overseeing a slow decline.

This is Newcastle United; the 19th-richest club in the world, the seventh-richest club in the Premier League, who also have the seventh-highest wage bill.

The club boasts the 13th-highest attendance in European football, bigger than Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool, Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan, Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus.

The Newcastle fans who help to swell St James Park with attendances of over 50,000 deserve so much better.

After nearly being sucked into the Championship, there are signs that Mike Ashley might finally start to change his approach at Newcastle.

Before the game on Sunday afternoon he gave his first-ever television interview in which he told Sky Sports, via the Guardian, about his shock and disappointment at this season, and then declared, “Now [my intention] is definitely to win something, and by the way, I won’t be selling it until I do.”

“I will continue the policy of investing in the football club,” he added. “We’ve got the club on a very sound financial footing so we are able to spend, and punch above our weight thanks to the current financial situation the club finds itself in. We may have the cart but we now need to bolt the horse on and we are going to.”

Having built up the Sports Direct empire, and a personal fortune estimated to be around £4 billion, Ashley is clearly a successful businessman, and he has been forced to realise that continuing the approach of the last two seasons will only lead to relegation.

With the unprecedented riches of the new television deal about to flood into the game from next year, he knows he cannot afford to be cut off from this in the Championship.

There is already money there, with Newcastle recording record profits of £18.7 million last season, and also having £34 million sitting in the bank.

Some of this needs to be urgently spent on new players, for Newcastle finished the season with a chronically weakened squad.

Before entering the transfer market, the club need to make sure they retain their leading players, which include Tim Krul, Daryl Janmaat, Moussa Sissoko, Papiss Cisse and Fabricio Coloccini.

A new manager is also required to bring new energy and direction to St James’ Park.

The relief at remaining in the Premier League should not lead to Carver remaining in the job beyond this season, and Newcastle need to aim higher than Steve McClaren.

When Mike Ashley took charge of Newcastle in 2007, he said, as reported in the Daily Mail, he wanted to “have fun and win some trophies.”

Eight years later, discounting the Championship, only won following a relegation, Ashley’s haul of major trophies stands at zero.

If he wants to change that, he first needs to fundamentally change his entire approach, and then radically change the Newcastle squad for next season.

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