NEWCASTLE United have had their fun. A wonderful fling has been flung. Now they need to start winning things, pipe dreams must give way to pragmatism, and Kenny Dalglish was merely waiting to be asked.

Dalglish has always been a winner, both as player and manager. And in spite of his sudden stressful departure from Liverpool in 1991, which owed much to memories of Hillsborough, to be followed by a longer withdrawal from Blackburn Rovers after bringing the championship to Ewood Park in 1995, there is no reason to suppose that he has lost the knack.

Like Kevin Keegan, Dalglish is 45; he is just 18 days younger, in fact. Also like Keegan, he has spent heavily to build teams to his liking. But whereas Keegan left St James' Park a week ago £40 million down on transfer dealings with nothing tangible to show for it, Dalglish has usually seen regular returns on his investments.

Within a year of Dalglish taking over the Liverpool team from Joe Fagan, Anfield had won its first Double. In four years at Ewood Park he brought Blackburn from the obscurity of the old Second Division to the club's first league championship since 1914. No manager has yet won the title with three different clubs.

Life with Kenny is not cheap, but he does tend to deliver the goods. And in Newcastle's present situation, with a £160 million stock market flotation pending and the bank getting twitchy, his appointment will encourage the thought that at least the goods have left the factory.

Sir John Hall, the Newcastle chairman, may have been keener on bringing the 63-year-old Bobby Robson back from Barcelona to team up with Peter Beardsley as his number two, but Hall's son Douglas wanted Dalglish and the club could not afford the delay which negotiations with Nou Camp might have brought.

So far, so good for all concerned. But Newcastle will be fortunate in the extreme if Dalglish taking over from Keegan as a manager turns out to be as seamless an exercise as the way he succeeded Keegan in the Liverpool team of 20 years ago.

Keegan helped Bob Paisley's side beat Borussia Moenchengladbach in the 1977 European Cup final and then left for Hamburg. A year later Dalglish's goal against Bruges at Wembley kept the trophy at Anfield. Keegan was Liverpool's inspiration, but Dalglish remains the best player they have ever had.

The most immediate beneficial effect of Dalglish's arrival at St James' Park will be to still the wagging tongues of speculation concerning the future of Alan Shearer. The England captain is ambitious for another crack at the Champions League and he was unlikely to get it under Keegan. The arrival of Dalglish, whose presence at Ewood Park wooed him to Blackburn, should quell any doubts Shearer might have had about the way Newcastle were heading.

At least Dalglish does not have to buy Shearer again - or Beardsley or Batty. That will save Newcastle a squillion or two, although they are unlikely to get off scot-free in the transfer market.

At Blackburn, Dalglish built a championship-winning team from the back. At Newcastle, Keegan tried to build one from the front but kept leaving the back door open. Sorting out the difference could prove a costly business and Dalglish may well find himself having to sell in order to buy.

Then again, he might do that anyway. Ginola and Asprilla may already be living on borrowed time at Newcastle. For all their skills neither appears to be Dalglish's sort of player. He also needs defenders of quality and experience, not to mention a top-class goalkeeper.

The trickiest task facing Dalglish will be to maintain the high levels of entertainment to which Newcastle supporters have been accustomed while giving them something shiny to admire at the end of the season. If his team reproduces the quality of attacking football played by Liverpool in the 1987-88 season all will be well, but St James' Park would be less enamoured of a switch to the more rigid formations of his successful Blackburn side.

The players wanted Beardsley as Keegan's successor, but then they would, wouldn't they? Dalglish will need a capable and experienced assistant but will that be Beardsley or might he try to persuade Ray Harford to re-establish the partnership. which worked so well at Blackburn?

Whichever way one looks at it, there are more fascinating times ahead at St James' Park. What has happened, essentially, is that Dalglish has put on a different-coloured shirt and resumed his duel with Alex Ferguson.

If Manchester United thought they had only Liverpool to worry about in the Premier League last night's announcement will have made them think again. For Fergie, Kenny keeps coming back like a song.