Kinnear looking to Owen and Barton for inspiration

9:49am Saturday 4th October 2008

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JOE KINNEAR has shown over the last 48 hours that he intends to confront any problems he encounters at Newcastle United head on.

On the pitch, however, he’ll pass those duties on to Michael Owen and Joey Barton, two players he has identified as capable of transforming the club’s fortunes.

Despite the ongoing troubles at St James’ Park that see the Magpies sitting second from bottom of the Premier League, Owen has scored five goals in seven appearances for the club this season, a small positive among an enormous number of negatives that have engulfed the club following the departure of Kevin Keegan in early September.

While Owen’s future remains very much up in the air – he is free to discuss a Bosman-style transfer next summer at the turn of the year – Kinnear knows just how important his inherited captain is.

Kinnear readily admits that Newcastle’s players are drained of confidence, lacking communication and vocal personalities following five straight defeats.

But ahead of his first match in charge of Newcastle at Everton tomorrow, the former Wimbledon manager feels that he has already forged a relationship with Owen capable of improving Newcastle’s fortunes.

“Michael is totally okay with me and agrees that what’s going on outside shouldn’t affect what happens on the pitch,” said Kinnear.

“We’ve now got to get the message to the rest of the players.

“They feel like they’ve been left in the lurch in terms of the communication from the club but I’ve told them e v e r y t h i n g straight and we’ve just got to get on with it.

It’s as simple as that.

“Yes, they have to take responsibility as far as the football is concerned, as does the manager. You can’t use things that are happening at the club as an excuse for a poor performance.”

After his outburst at Thursday’s pre-match press conference – the Newcastle manager used 52 expletives in an attack on his critics – Kinnear has called for more steel in the dressing room.

It is with that in mind, plus the injury list that prevents him from calling on ten of his players, that the 61-year-old is looking forward to the day when he can call upon badboy Barton.

There have been calls for Barton to be sacked following his spell in jail, while he also has two matches still to run on the six-match ban the Football Association handed him for his attack on O u s m a n e Dabo.

But Barton could be i n v o l v e d against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light on October 25 and Kinnear is looking forward to calling on the controversial player.

“We need somebody to be ranting and screaming information out on the pitch,” said Kinnear.

“We don’t have that at the moment. I imagine when Joey Barton comes back that might change. He’s a chirpy lad with things to say and he might improve things on the communication front.

“We certainly need people who are going to express themselves to sort things out.

You can’t always do it from the touchline.”

By the time Barton is available, Newcastle owner Mike Ashley hopes to have lined up a buyer for the Magpies.

And the businessman heading the South African consortium believed to have lodged a £300m offer has revealed that he has met Keegan about the possibility of a return.

Jonathan Cleland, a Scotland- based tycoon, also suggested that he was 80 per cent confident that the South Africans could push through a deal, despite interest from China, Nigeria and the United States.

“My meeting with Kevin (Keegan) went very well,” said Cleland. “I am hugely impressed with him and I got the sense there was good chemistry between us and there is a strong mutual interest in working together.

“He is our preferred option, but we cannot make any concrete decisions on the managerial position until negotiations on our planned takeover are further advanced.

I think he understands and supports our concept of developing the club organically.”

However, one of the South African businessmen linked with the takeover has labelled suggestions he is interested in the club as ‘‘fake’’.

Billionaire Johann Rupert, the man behind Swiss-owned luxury goods company Richemont, has rubbished reports he has eyes on succeeding Ashley as owner at St James’ Park.

‘‘I have never met Mr Cleland, never spoken to him on the phone and my secretary does not have a record of him calling,’’ he said.

‘‘I haven’t spoken to any of the other parties either.

‘‘I don’t know Mr Cleland, I have a preference for cricket and rugby. I don’t know anything about football and I’m not a football man.’’