Owen's days at Newcastle now surely numbered

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE:ALAN SHEARER has always been big on loyalty to friends but, as Michael Owen can now confirm, he will not let sentimentality or favouritism cloud his managerial judgment, writes LOUISE TAYLOR

Owen and Shearer go back a long way and even share an agent but Newcastle United’s manager unceremoniously hauled the under-performing sometime England striker off the St James’ Park pitch after 70 minutes against Middlesbrough on Monday night.

Within 55 seconds the decision was vindicated as the newly introduced Obafemi Martins gave Newcastle a vital lead. Yet it was made at a personal cost. Watching Owen visibly tense and, almost flinching, turn away as Shearer patted him on the back and Martins ran on, a once close relationship looked under extreme strain.

It was a bold gesture on the part of such a novice manager. It was also one which may come to be regarded as an important watershed in Shearer’s career, the moment when he convinced the cynics that he really might cut it in the dugout and Newcastle could remain a Premier League side.

After all, through his captain’s column in the match programme, Owen had argued that his manager had been “wrong” to drop him for the previous game, at Liverpool. Shearer offered him a chance to prove his point, saw it fluffed and, by introducing Martins, emphasised that Newcastle’s squad is now a true meritocracy.

Martins and another substitute, Peter Lovenkrands, scored to win the game. Instead of being the centre of attention Owen, a €19 million former Liverpool and Real Madrid striker, seemed strangely irrelevant, almost a footnote to the night’s tumultuous events.

Whether or not Newcastle – who host Fulham on Saturday and visit Aston Villa the following weekend – win their fight for survival, a forward fast approaching the end of his contract appears certain to conclude his injury-ravaged spell at St James’ this summer.

Having failed to score since January and with his old change of pace dimmed, Owen – surely now suited to more of an attacking midfield position than deployment as an orthodox striker – finds himself seeking pastures new.

No English club will match his current €129,000-a-week deal and he may regret not accepting Newcastle’s (now withdrawn) January offer of a reduction to around €90,000. Although Everton and Celtic are reputedly interested in reinventing his game, money could prove an obstacle. He may need to look east to Istanbul, where Galatasary want him to star alongside Harry Kewell.

The chances of Owen starting another game for Newcastle almost certainly hinge on the fragile state of Martins’s groin and Mark Viduka’s achilles tendon. If the prospect of Owen enjoying a renaissance is receding, Viduka is enjoying an Indian summer. He shone against Middlesbrough. The Australian’s career was petering out until Shearer arrived.

“Joe Kinnear didn’t look as if he wanted to use me,” said Viduka. “But the first thing Alan Shearer said to me was, ‘Are you up for a fight?’ When someone like Alan Shearer, someone with that kind of personality, who has done what he has done in the game, says ‘I need you’, it really lifts you up.”

Almost out of contract, Viduka is seeking a new deal. “I’d like to spend more time at this club and have good times with Alan Shearer as boss,” he said.

“I’ve been here two years and had five managers so whatever happens, I’d say to whoever is in charge: ‘Keep Alan Shearer’.”

• Guardian Service