AFTER confirming the appointment of Newcastle United's fourth manager in three years, chairman Freddy Shepherd joined forces with Sam Allardyce to insist that Michael Owen's future rests firmly in the striker's hands.

Allardyce arrived on Tyneside in a helicopter yesterday morning before meeting up with a number of the Magpies' players who had not already started their summer holidays.

Owen, the club's £16m record purchase, was not one of those, as he had already made a trip to Ireland, but the Magpies' new boss planned to ring the England man's mobile at some stage last night.

The prolific striker's situation remains one of the most pressing matters for Allardyce to take care of in his first few weeks in charge, knowing there has been mounting speculation Owen has been eyeing up a summer move to Manchester United.

Newcastle, knowing injury has restricted him to just 14 appearances in his two years at St James' Park, feel he owes the club and its supporters some loyalty for the way they have had to be patient during his long absence.

But yesterday, adopting a different approach to that being expected, Shepherd and Allardyce revealed only time will tell whether Owen will be spearheading the new-look Newcastle in the Premiership next season.

Ideally Allardyce will be able to call upon the former Liverpool and Real Madrid man, with Shepherd suggesting Owen should not even be considering leaving at this stage.

"I haven't heard from Michael Owen. He wouldn't have signed in the first place if he didn't think this was the place to be," said Shepherd, nursing a fractured rib suffered while playing golf.

"If 20,000 people coming to see him on the day that he signed [at St James'] didn't make his mind up, nothing would. As I've said before, he's under contract here until something else happens and I hope he stays. He's a great player and as far as I'm concerned I've no problem with him.

"He's done nothing wrong to me. I'm quite happy relationship-wise, but like any player, he has to make his mind up about what he wants to do. It's up to him. The ball's in his court."

Allardyce, opting against flying out to Ireland to meet up with Owen, knows his task is to revive a success-starved club by changing the whole attitude and mindset which has set in among the players.

And, he thinks, one of the ways of carrying that out is to ensure a precedent is laid down from an early stage in terms of who exactly is in charge.

On Sunday, ahead of Newcastle's last game of the season against Watford, both Charles N'Zogbia and Obafemi Martins infuriated team-mates with their childish actions after being told they were not in the starting line-up.