Offloading Jenas will not suit Owen

Andrew Fifield wonders if Michael Owen's move to Newcastle was the correct one for the England striker

Bobby Robson had a theory about how to attract new players to Newcastle United. "If we invite any footballer to our magnificent stadium," he said, "and then take him to the Quayside to see the girls, then we will be able to persuade him to sign for this club."

Michael Owen may not have needed such reassurances - in the mucky world of Premiership football, he is as wholesome as it gets - but whatever tactics employed by the Newcastle manager Graeme Souness, chairman Freddie Shepherd and dressingroom leader Alan Shearer, they worked. Owen now wears black and white stripes and Tyneside has been celebrating ever since.

Around 20,000 supporters turned out to hail their new hero last Wednesday. In a stadium full of smacked gobs, it was difficult to tell who was most surprised: Souness, for successfully persuading England's sharpest shooter to sign for a club that finished last season among the dead men; Shepherd, for once again extricating himself from a potentially job-threatening predicament; or Owen himself.

A few days earlier, the striker had suggested that he would only countenance joining Newcastle if Liverpool's interest remained cool, and that even then he would only consider a 12-month loan deal. It was hardly the obvious precursor to signing a four-year contract, and Owen did bear a slightly haunted expression as he was paraded around St James' Park - like a man who glimpses the girl of his dreams while walking down the aisle with an ill-matched bride.

Owen is right to feel wary. It is easy to become misty-eyed when discussing Newcastle - the Gallowgate, Jackie Milburn, Super Mac, Gazza et al are forever etched into football folklore - but that ignores the club's here-and-now banality.

Indeed, arguably the most significant piece of business conducted by Newcastle last week was not the recruitment of Owen, but the selling of Jermaine Jenas. As quick with his mind as with his feet, Jenas is a midfielder of international quality who would surely have thrived with Owen ahead of him. Instead, he chose to hot-foot it to Tottenham, where Martin Jol continues to assemble young home-grown talent at a frightening rate.

The departure of Jenas has rendered Newcastle's already brittle midfield dangerously unstable. It is all very well to have two thoroughbreds leading the line, but Shearer and Owen no longer create their own chances. Without service, they will starve.

Owen will also be fidgety at the prospect of a season without European football. The striker is still young enough to learn new tricks, but wreaking weekly havoc on the Premiership's flimsy defences will not broaden his talents. Owen can only develop by testing himself against the Continent's best, but Newcastle have no need of their passports this season.

It could prove costly. "Michael Owen needs European football," observed Ian Rush, a man who should know. " He will be a hero at Newcastle, but I would have loved him to come back to Liverpool. They are the European champions and the sort of top club that Michael should be playing for."

Owen is more aware of this than anybody. Shepherd was lightning-fast in denying that his number 10 has a get-out clause in his freshly-penned contract, but he will find that words are cheap if Newcastle fail to qualify for the Uefa Cup this season. Owen has already shown ruthlessness in ditching Liverpool in search of trophies - a big mistake, as events transpired - and then Real Madrid, when he was reduced to bench duty. He will surely not think twice about quitting Newcastle. Unlike Shearer, Owen has no emotional attachment to the club and fanatical supporters are no compensation for silverware.

But that is all for the future. In the mean time, it is enough that Owen is back. The Premiership has been a duller place in his absence, and St James' Park - a stadium shrouded in negativity ever since Robson's sacking as manager last August - will be buoyed by his arrival. Owen's return will also hand England a much-needed fillip. After a drubbing in Denmark and a tedious, if efficient, victory over Wales, the galvanised Owen - suspended against the Welsh - will be unleashed against Northern Ireland on Wednesday.

Sven-Goran Eriksson will be thankful for that. Although the public's gaze has long since drifted to Wayne Rooney, Owen remains England's most potent striker. It is true that he suffers slumps in form - troughs which are always seized upon by a curiously hostile media - but Owen answers questions about his game in devastating fashion. There were calls for him to be dropped before England's appearances in the quarter-finals of the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004: he scored in both.

They were strikes which proved that - like all great players - Owen's greatest talent is timing. It would be unlike him not to mark his much-trumpeted homecoming with a goal. Northern Ireland have been warned.