Enough of that. The major concern of any meeting between owner and coach would surely centre on Owen and Taylor. I’m sure the cash will be available for new players but it won’t be as much as we like to think given Mort’s warnings of “Doing a Leeds” yesterday!

“What we have said is, once we have made sure we are safe for next season, we will go through the squad with Kevin and see where the rebuilding is required.

“It is only fair to the supporters to make sure we are safe for next season before making any decisions. We are taking nothing for granted.”

The squad inherited by Keegan has come on leaps and bounds over the last three matches. Confidence and determination have returned. My feeling is Mort & Co. should be happy with the current form of the players they have. We  already put Shola Ameobi out to Stoke on an apparently record loan deal but we still have some players who may ship out for extra cash in the transfer fund, namely Smith (inconsistent season/yet to score), Carr(Well past it) and Rozehnal(Stroppy with Keegan). Talks of Steven Taylor heading for the exit are also rife because of apparent inflated wage demands. If we lose Taylor with our already leaky defence, it could mean most new faces brought in will be making up the back four.

Summer transfer names touted for the black and white short are Jose Antonio Reyes and Darren Bent. Bent has so far remained unconvincing despite his 20m price tag. Could the board cash in on Michael Owen and bring in the likes of Bent? Whatever the outcome the board are certainly opting for a safety first approach before openly discussing player funding. Fans, however, would certainly like to see Ashley splash his cash to make Newcastle a force to be reckoned with next season.

“We were playing for a lot more than Spurs and I think it showed”

“That’s no disrespect to Spurs because they are a wonderful side who are going places, but we might be going those same places with them and it looks as though we can.”

Chris Mort was also eager to praise the team and Keegan’s efforts through a rather rough patch from mid January onwards:-

“The results haven’t really come. The football went a bit awry, but Kevin’s got them playing again, and we saw that.”

Some have observed how Michael Owen had practically played as a midfielder in recent matches. Whatever the strategy it has worked so far and it seems many defenders are caught off guard by Owen running in from deep to pick up balls from Viduka and Martins. Owen said:

“Currently we’re playing a certain way which the gaffer has decided and I’ve enjoyed it,” he said.

“Everyone knows I’m a striker who scores goals, but I’ve enjoyed coming off and I’m still getting into the box and scoring those goals – it’s three in three with the new system.

“It’s good to have a link-up and, especially away from home when you’re under the cosh, it’s nice for the lads at the back and in midfield to have an outlet and that’s my role at the moment.”

It seems that many of Sam Allardyce’s purchases during the summer are now paying off. I can pick out Geremi, Enrique, Viduka and recently Barton giving the kind of performances we expect from players in a black n’ white shirt. Another such good purchase has been Habib Beye, who came to us at around £2m. On Saturday we saw a top Beye effort which smacked the cross bar early on in the game. The defender said in the Evening Chronicle today:

“Now we have a lot of confidence from this as well as the points.” “It’s good for everybody because they worked hard for it.”

“We’ve worked in training because everybody wants this club in the Premier League next season.” “At Spurs we showed it with a massive three points.”

Finally, Emre who has until recently been out with an injury scored a crucial goal to level a reserves match against Manchester United tonight. The likes of Carroll, Ramage, Edgar and Ngo Baheng also featured but it was the veteran midfielder who put the ball in the back of the net. Let’s hope we once again see the best of Emre in Keegan’s squad in the near future.

Throughout the match, we outplayed Blackburn with some wonderful play with the midfield putting in crosses into Owen. It was not Michael Owen’s day as he saw chance after chance palmed away by Friedel. The loss of this match, now puts us a scary three points above the drop zone with Reading beating our North-East rivals, Middlesbrough, by a late goal. With Anfield approaching next weekend, personally, I can’t see us beat the Scousers but as the cliche goes, animals are deadliest when wounded.

As for Keegan, does he still have the respect of fans and the board? Well, as a long suffering fan, I’m getting a tad impatient but KK did his best to get the game wrapped with his sub choices and tactics. Blackburn didn’t deserve to win this match although these things happen when a top and bottom half team are playing. Chris Mort was again forced on to the airwaves to support the beleaguered Keegan. I’ve never trusted Mort’s word since January anyway, so in my view it’ll have the same effect if he had just kept silent.

What can we assume about Keegan’s second coming? Well, he’s not a Messiah that’s for sure. He said of his task was to complete unfinished business and bring entertainment back on the pitch. That’s not going to happen quickly and not anytime soon either. He’s lost the faith of Charles N’Zogbia and lost assistant manager, Nigel Pearson. The Dennis Wise episode from the boardroom hasn’t damaged the image of Keegan as such as the figure head in the coaching staff but does raise questions about the intentions of Ashley & co. (which brings me to my next point later). KKs inability to bring Shearer into the fold has meant that the backroom staff setup feels somehow incomplete from an outsider’s point of view. Fair enough, Shearer wants to do his own thing but playing it out in the open looked as if Shearer had his doubts about the course of the club and manager alike. The door is still open for Shearer but the lift in morale it would generate in the club would be a welcomed and timely one at that. The recent transfer window was a failure on KKs behalf to bring in decent players. If KK was following football during his years in the wilderness, he might have naturally gone after talent he knew would have fit in. Also, he missed the chance to relieve the club of wasters like Ameobi, Carr, Smith to name but a few. He was a little bit unlucky to get his job in the middle of a transfer window but that wasn’t his fault.

Which brings me nicely onto Mort & Co. In a recent interview with Allardyce, he explained that he was merely at the club so that the board could have the time to sack him once things were in place. But spectacularly, things weren’t in place as in the Redknapp incident played out so openly in the media. Chris Mort, a man with even less experience running a football club just looks more like a bespectacled grey man in the stands. A nobody in the football world standing in the shadow of his enigmatic master. I was never convinced that this man (a lawyer by trade)Would he be capable of talking-the-talk with high profile potential managers to make Newcastle an attractive enough proposition for managering. As for Mike Ashley, he’ll continue to play the fan and be in the terraces but he like everyone else, has to start to make decisions from the brain and not just from the heart.

He stated to the question of the vacant England role:

“No, because I’m contracted to Newcastle United, and from my point of view that contract needs to be honoured.

“I’m not in the position like I was at my old club where the chairman openly extended the invitation for me to go for the position. I’m not in that position now.”

On McClaren’s sacking, Big Sam added:

“I don’t think it’s any shock to anybody, unfortunately, part of that job – the non-negotiable – would be to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships and if you don’t you suffer the consequences.

“A night that looked that it was going to be so bright ended up so bad, and for that and the results earlier on in the group stages it has cost him his job.”

I think Big Sam gave the most diplomatic of responses to the question of the England job. He’s right in a sense as Mort would not sanction any talks between him and the FA anyway. Also, one toughest jobs to rival , if not surpass, that of Newcastle would be the England job. Big Sam is well aware of this and already has his hands full handling Newcastle.

Meanwhile, The Sun today, Alan Shearer looked to have ruled himself out expressing his surpirse at being on the list of contenders and citing experience as a stumbling block. He’s right, if things go badly which it can easily go with England, he won’t have much of a future career afterwards.

“All derbies are obviously different, and that in a way isn’t a derby. It’s just two successful teams – they are miles apart.”

He continues:

“Every derby is different, whether it’s Liverpool v Everton or Newcastle v Sunderland.

“I have never played in a Newcastle v Sunderland derby, and I am looking forward to sampling this one.”

 Let’s hope he doesn’t just “sample” the derby tomorrow and get stuck in to get himself on the scoresheet. This win is as important to him as it is to Newcastle.

“Every Geordie looks forward to the derby games. It’s a massive game for me, the fans and everyone associated with the club,” he said.

“It’s a game we have really got to win. It means so much to the whole of Newcastle. “

On a side note, both Chris Mort and Allardyce have come out guns blazing defending recent team performances. Big Sam has been actively rubbishing talk regarding his tenancy in the Newcastle job, however, I wouldn’t say his job is under any threat. He just needs to shape up the team back to some of the winning ways at the beginning of the season.