Chris Mort, the Newcastle United chairman, has dismissed the latest bout of takeover speculation to engulf the club as “absolute rubbish” and has spoken of his enthusiasm at the prospect of working with Kevin Keegan over the next three years. While results have not been ideal after the manager’s extraordinary return to St James’ Park, the mood remains positive and committed.

Whether on or off the field, respite has been a rare commodity since Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s billionaire owner, bought the club last summer, but Mort’s intervention should reassure supporters that the new regime are not actively seeking buyers. Without naming names, he suggested there may have been a deliberate attempt “to cause disruption to the club by spreading so many false rumours”.

It has been reported in recent days that Alan Shearer, Newcastle’s record goalscorer, had been approached by a group of North East businessmen to front a £250 million bid for the club. There have also been claims that associates of Ashley made contact with PCP, a third-party financing company, in order to invite Dubai Investment Capital (DIC) to abandon their pursuit of Liverpool in favour of Newcastle.

Mort reacted firmly to both. “The reality is that the Alan Shearer story and the PCP story were both absolute rubbish,” he said. “Alan has obviously denied he has been approached by a consortium and we had never heard of PCP until Monday’s story.” Newcastle have denied making any overtures to DIC, covert or otherwise.

After the disappointment of Sam Allardyce’s tenure, Keegan’s arrival has energised the club, even if, in five attempts, he has yet to preside over a victory. Newcastle’s form is mediocre – a sequence of nine league games without a win ensures that the threat of relegation cannot be ignored – but Mort has offered reassurances that Keegan will not be burdened with impatience. “It is clear that Kevin has had an immediate and very positive impact,” he said. “The feedback from the players and backroom staff has all been very positive. Although the players are working harder in training, they are enjoying it more and improving their fitness levels. We appreciate it will take time for Kevin to turn things around.

“He has a 3½year contract and we are looking to see what can be achieved over that period. He has already got the team playing more football and I am comfortable that the results will follow once we get that first win. We also appreciate that we could have seen out this season and brought Kevin to the club in the summer, but that would have meant another transition season next season and we wanted to avoid that.”

While the timing of Allardyce’s dismissal was not perfect – Keegan was unable to secure any established first-team players during the remainder of the transfer window after his appointment on January 16 – Mort is adamant that the club will benefit from the change in due course.

“The club will be better prepared [for next summer], as we have a manager and scouting team with several months to consider both where we need strengthening and who we might bring in, whereas last summer we had a new manager and new senior scouting staff joining in the summer that had not worked at the club previously,” Mort said. “In addition, whilst I appreciate we have had a poor run of results, we have a much stronger squad of players now than that with which we finished last season. So we will also have the advantage of adding new players to a much stronger base.”

The appointment of Dennis Wise as executive director (football), was another source of controversy, but Keegan was consulted on the move and he is to make further alterations to his coaching staff. “There are one or two more additions Kevin would like to make, but the guys we have brought in have already started to make an impact, with some excellent young players purchased in January,” Mort said.