DEREK Llambias will be confirmed as Newcastle's new chairman within the next two weeks - and his first priority will be to kick-start contract negotiations with the club's captain, Michael Owen.

Llambias will succeed Chris Mort once the current chairman's secondment from London law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is terminated. Mort had been expected to return to his former employers in the immediate aftermath of the final game of last season, but has remained in his post as he completes a number of negotiations that are close to a conclusion.

Those negotiations are not understood to include Owen's contract position, despite a meeting between club officials and the England international's representatives earlier this month.

Llambias will be instructed to break the current impasse in the early weeks of his reign, so that the club's recruitment team can formalise their own plans for the summer.

Both Dennis Wise and Jeff Vetere have been scouting players across the continent in the last month, but manager Kevin Keegan and vice-president Tony Jimenez are reluctant to begin formal transfer negotiations while Owen's future continues to hang in the balance.

The 28-year-old will enter the final year of his current contract next month, but Newcastle are refusing to offer him a new deal on the same £110,000-a-week terms he currently enjoys.

The Magpies are believed to be offering around £80,000-a-week for a new long-term contract, and Llambias will be urged to extract a decisive response from Owen's representatives.

The striker, who was forced to pull out of the England squad for this week's friendlies with the United States and Trinidad & Tobago because of a virus, has been linked with both Manchester United and Everton in recent weeks.

But there is no guarantee that either club would be willing to match Newcastle's latest contract offer, and Llambias, who was formerly the managing director of the London Fifty Club casino, will hope to secure Owen's services within the first month of his chairmanship at St James' Park.

There is no such uncertainty over Mark Viduka's future, and the Australia international is desperate to increase his involvement during his second season on Tyneside.

Viduka made just 19 Premier League starts as a succession of niggling injuries hampered him last season but, despite picking up an Achilles injury in this month's 2-0 defeat to Chelsea, is hoping his persistent problems are now at an end.

"Personally, I would like to play more games and have fewer injuries," he said. "I was starting to feel fitter with every game I played towards the end of the season, but I would like to have been like that all of the time."

■ Newcastle have been forced to postpone their planned pre-season friendly with Rangers. Walter Smith's side had been due to visit St James' Park on Wednesday, August 6, but their failure to finish last season as Scottish champions means they must now play a Champions League qualifying fixture in the same week.

Newcastle are hoping to arrange alternative opponents for the date.