Souness expects big things from Owen

Newcastle manager Graeme Souness promised there would be more of the same from hat-trick hero Michael Owen once he gets his injured players fit again.

The Newcastle boss, celebrating his 50th Premiership game in charge, is missing seven first team players through injury.

But Owen and partner Alan Shearer provided him with more than enough firepower to overcome West Ham in a six-goal thriller at Upton Park.

United paid £16million to prise England international Owen away from Real Madrid in the summer and Souness is convinced he is worth every penny.

The Scot said: “We are delighted to have Michael Owen at Newcastle.

“He is a proven goalscorer at every level. We feel that once we get everybody fit we’ll create even more openings for him.

“We’ve missed Michael when he’s not been in our team through injury. He was the difference today along with Alan Shearer – who is still a very big player for our team.

“We felt the two of them today could get at West Ham’s backfour and score goals and that’s how it turned out.

“It wasn’t a silky passing game because we are missing a lot of our players. We are just delighted with the three points.

“West Ham are a handful at home and they tried to get after us. We shot ourselves in the foot by giving them a penalty and allowing them back into the game.

“It should have been an easy 20 minutes for us but at times we were holding on.

“Strikers make the difference on the day and that’s why Michael is valued the way he is.

“He’s scored seven goals for us now and goals win and change games.”

Owen struck twice in the first half with a Nobby Solano own goal sandwiched in between, before laying on the third for Shearer with a slide-rule pass.

Shearer’s strike puts him just one short of equalling Jackie Milburn’s all-time club record of 200 goals and it should have been enough to kill off West Ham.

But Shola Ameobi’s handball allowed Marlon Harewood to reduce the arrears from the penalty spot in the 73rd minute.

However, Owen completed a superb individual performance by completing his hat-trick in the closing seconds as West Ham chased an equaliser.

West Ham manager Alan Pardew was pleased with his side’s effort and endeavour but had to concede that Newcastle’s strike pair made them pay.

“Looking at the result anyone would think we had the runaround today but in terms of football we played some fantastic stuff,” said Pardew.

“Mistakes and a pairing that is obviously world class has cost us the game today.

“I cannot think of a time when Newcastle were in control of the game but we kept shooting ourselves in the foot.

“Owen’s influence on the game was not great but his chances came and he scored them.

“Hopefully he will be representing us in the World Cup and I’ll be cheering him when he scores goals – but not today.

“As well as we’ve played we need to cut the mistakes out but on a positive note some of the performances we had were fantastic.

“It was another great game here at Upton Park but we are not going to let teams think they can have an easy win here.

“We’ll fight right to the end and we are very disappointed in the dressing room because we honestly felt we could have got something out of the game, perhaps should have.

“If we had got the second goal to make it 2-1, I think we would have won today.”