After Sunday’s 5-1 Barclays Premier League defeat by Liverpool, the club’s injury list has reached double figures and Joe admits that it’s been more or less a case of cancelling training and wrapping all of his players, and see if he can get 11 players to be fit for Hull’s match this weekend.

The only good news that Joe can cheers about is the French defender Sebastien Bassong will return from a one-match ban. Jose Enrique, Nicky Butt and Shola Ameobi all will have late fitness tests.

But Habib Beye will be sidelined for up to two months with a knee problem. Mark Viduka, Obafemi Martins, Claudio Cacapa and Joey Barton are among them who has a long-term injuries.

The Toon boss, on his New Year’s message said that he is keen to take Newcastle United to climb the Premier League table in 2009.

He feels that Newcastle side is still good enough to achieve a respectable position in the second period of the campaign despite all the lengthy injury list.

“I’m proud of what we have achieved so far, and I feel we can build on it.” He said, as quoted from the Chronicle, “I am only looking ahead and only look upwards, and I think we can get a respectable finish because this division is just so close.”

Meanwhile, Shay Given has insisted he is not going to leave the St James’s Park after serving the Toon for as long as 12 seasons. Shay is contracted with Newcastle until 2011.

According to a source close to the 32-year-old goalkeper, who told the Chronicle, Shay always given his all for Newcastle United, and that will never change.

Being frustrated at how things had gone on the pitch against Liverpool was the reason why he left the field so quickly, but to say he’s unhappy at Newcastle is 100 % wrong.

Another report suggesting that Inter Milan’s coach Jose Mourinho could make a move for the Magpies’ skipper and was offering one of his players in a swap deal. Owen is now free to talk to other clubs, but insisted he wants to wait until the end of this season before making it clear about his future at Tyneside.

Despite making better use of our chances we still conceded possession too easily in that 1st half, when I thought we struggled in midfield.

However, we stuck at it, and getting the 1st goal changed the game in much the same way it did in the home game vs Villa – our confidence visibly soared, we got a grip in midfield and ended the game well on top.

As for Enrique, I thought he was poor to start with, but improved as the game proceeded and he had a really good 2nd half.

Apart from one howler when he passed the ball straight to an opponent well inside our half, I thought Coloccini had a much better game today. N’Zogbia had a very quiet 1st half, but looked more like his old self in the 2nd when he started running at his full-back.

I thought our defence looked well organised, and the problems we did have generally arose from losing possession in bad areas. Bassong had another good game; his uncomplicated style and aerial ability compliments Colloccini’s game very well.

Owen worked his nuts off and took his goal superbly, not to say very bravely as he really got clattered. The Sky geniuses blamed Calamity for Martins’ goal, whereas the ‘slo-mo’ showed he actually dummied James into going to ground before side-footing it past him.

What’s more his 25 yard swinging scorcher in the 1st half that struck the inside of James’ left hand post would have been a candidate for Goal of the Season. I can see some signs that under JFK’s direction Oba is beginning to become a better team player. Let’s just hope he hasn’t incurred a serious injury.

Our first away win, and a very solid team performance against a big, physical team that are usually a handful on their own ground will hopefully provide a turning point in this dreadful season.

Seeing a much stronger team and bench than had been reported only yesterday, also provides a degree of comfort. What’s more Xisco is fit again!

Owen’s present contract will end next summer, and starting from next January, he will be free to negotiate with any club who may be interested to offload him from Newcasle United, according to the Bosman rule.

Miles Starforth writes on his column at Shield Gazette today that United has already set sights on who will be Owen’s replacement in case he’s out of SJP. The Wolfsburg’s German Under-21 international striker Ashkan Dejagah is one of them.

Ashkan Dejagah (born July 5, 1986 in Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian-born German and he currently plays for VfL Wolfsburg as a striker. His professional debut for Wolfs is againt VfL Bochum in the opening match of 2004-2005.

Playing for the last five minutes for his only first team appearance that year, he was also becoming the youngest player to ever play for the club since it was founded in 1892. In 2004 after being called to play for Germany’s u-19 national team, Dejagah scores seven goals in 15 international games.

It may be long enough and probably not suit enough to todays way of negotiate, but I still think that the King still has the charismatic performance when dealing with player, he still has that magic of influence and can be the master of negotiator.

Unfortunately, his such high charisma would mean nothing if no sufficient back-up from current Toon board of directors, and these days, we have many of them that Keegan would see it more difficult to handle than the old days at Newcastle.

Keegan was also has the eye of the tiger when targeting his player to play for him. Back in September 1992, Kevin Keegan was successful in signing Charlton Athletic star Robert Lee for a fee of £700,000. At that time, Lee is rated one of the best players outside the top division.

After appearing more than 300 occasions for the Addicks in which he netted more than 60 goals, Rob Lee signed for Toon after hearing Keegan’s diplomacy about Newcastle is closer to London than Middlesbrough, who also keen to sign him from Charlton. Keegan also succeed to convince him to play more conventional attacking midfielder role than as a winger on his time with the London club.

The same role as what Rob Lee has been playing for United is now happening to Michael Owen. Under Keegan, the England striker was reborn after the King made him playing more deeper role in Newcastle’s three-pronged strikeforce. Once again, Keegan instinct is right, and Owen is just like Lee, has scores more goals for United in his new role.

And when Keegan said nearly two months ago that Newcastle board should start negotiating a contract extention with Michael Owen, it was something that is more to Keegan’s basic instinct because he knows Owen can be usefull for Newcastle, if we can make him stay out of injury.

The King is right once again, Michael Owen playing important key in our relegation escape, and the Toon board now looking to put an end to the speculation regarding his future before making moves for another players in the transfer market.

Both representatives of the England international and the club officials begin negotiations last week and arrange the second meeting to take place in the next fortnight. Owen himself is still keen to remaining a Newcastle player and he is full of praise for the work done by Keegan.

“We all enjoy training and playing alongside each other and he has brought a real feel-good factor into the club,” said Owen in an interview on Newcastle World. “Everyone is enjoying coming in to training every day and when you do that you do it better. He knows his stuff and he can see a player, he can see if something needs tweaking or changing and tactically he’s very good. It’s been a fantastic appointment for us and we’ve all really enjoyed his time so far.”

All I can say is, stay with us for more time Mikey, and you will see that Newcastle United is true closer to London (Wembley) rather than from Middlesbrough not very long from now.

Although his appearance for Newcastle since his £16million signing from Real Madrid in 2005, restricted to only 37 league starts, Keegan is insist that Owen can become “one of the Tyneside greats” and identified as his priority this summer with further meetings to discuss the contract extention have been scheduled.

The new talk schedule is also to counter the latest ridiculous rumour from Nikkan Sports that reported J-League Chiba officials were preparing an initial approach after unveiling former Liverpool first-team coach Alex Miller as their new manager and had made contact with Owen’s agent Tony Stephens.

As a young lad, He held talks with Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal, before he eventually signed for Liverpool, the club that persuaded him to attend the FA’s School of Excellence at Lilleshall in Shropshire at age 14 before signed professional forms for the senior team just after his seventeenth birthday in December 1996.

After successful playing career with the Reds (1996–2004) scoring 118 goals from 216 appearance, he signed for Spanish giant Real Madrid but being overlooked in his very first and only season among the star-studded Galacticos squad. Owen scores 13 goals from 35 appearances for them.

On 24 August 2005, Newcastle United announced a club record fee of £16 million to take Owen back to premier league. He scored his first goal for United on his second appearance, United’s second goal in a 3–0 away win at Blackburn Rovers on September 18.

Owen scored his first hat-trick for Newcastle in the 4–2 away win over West Ham on December 17 with a “perfect hat trick”, with one goal scored with each of his left foot, right foot, and his head. After that, Owen’s season with Newcastle is full of injury problems.

In the first minute of the group match against Sweden at the 2006 World Cup, damaged anterior cruciate ligament injury in his right knee kept Owen out of United squad for nearly a year, until April 2007. With an escape clause valued at £12 million in his precious contract before being cleared off this year, Owen has often being in reports he could move on to another club at the end of the 2006–07 season.

After returning from the hernia operation in late September 2007, he scored a late goal coming off the substitutes bench to clinch victory for Newcastle over Everton. In the second Keegan era, Owen scored again in a 4-1 FA Cup 3rd round replay win over Stoke City on 16 January 2008.

With more speculations back in about his future under Keegan’s because of an old burst-up between them while Keegan was the England manager, Owen was later awarded the captaincy by Keegan on 19 January 2008 and scored his first league goal for Keegan on 3rd of February.

Owen’s goals starting to come in the 2-0 defeat of Fulham on 22 March 2008, which also Newcastle’ first win under Kevin Keegan’s second stewardship before finishing with 11 Premier League goals and was the key factor in Newcastle relegation escape in the 2007-2008 season.