Sam Allardyce has backed Michael Owen to fire Newcastle back up the Premiership table and remind English football of his potency, despite the England striker suffering another injury setback.
The 27-year-old striker has managed only 14 competitive appearances - scoring seven goals - for the Magpies in the two years since his £17million switch from Real Madrid because of injury, but scored in the 3-1 friendly victory at Hartlepool on Tuesday evening.
Owen is back on the treatment table once again after damaging a thigh muscle in training today and will miss the trip to Carlisle tomorrow and probably Celtic's visit to St James' Park on Thursday evening.
However, Allardyce has few doubts that when fully fit, Owen remains one of the deadliest forwards in the country and is confident Newcastle will reap the benefits next season.
He said: "There's no doubt about that. We would like Michael to stay fit for the whole of a season in the Premier League and be chasing the leading goalscorers.
"One would hope when we are drawing to a close at the end of next season, he is within the top three or four leading goalscorers in the Premier League — that would mean we have had a relatively good season.
"If that's the case, there needs to be some goals shared out from other areas to promote the goals scored situation, and if we get right the clean sheet scenario, then a lot of Michael's goals could hopefully bring us three points.
"If that's the case, we could escalate a little further forward in the Premier League.
"But we cannot expect too much, too soon."
Owen, who this week threw his hat into the ring for the vacant role of captain at St James's, needed just 13 minutes at Victoria Park to score his first goal for the club in 19 months.
He is unlikely to play again until July 29th when Juventus visit Tyneside, although by his recent standards, that is a mercifully brief lay-off.
Allardyce said: "It's a slight thigh injury he picked up doing a little shooting exercise, so we are taking a precautionary measure and leaving him out of tomorrow's game.
"Hopefully, it will be no more than a week or 10 days and he should be back in training again."
