Souness on Owen: He will only get better.

By Matt Jones
December 18 2005

26-year-old Michael Owen netted a perfect hattrick in yesterday's game against West Ham, and Toon boss Graeme Souness says: "He will only get better." The hattrick was perfect in the sense that the goals came from Owen's left foot, his right foot and his head; taking his goal tally to 7 in 8 games.

His goals aside, the former Liverpool and Real Madrid striker also set up Alan Shearer's goal.

Owen has not had the best of starts to his St James' Park career, suffering from hamstring and groin injuries.

However, Magpies' boss Graeme Souness knows that Owen is now on the up, and said:

"We are delighted to have Michael Owen at Newcastle.

"He is a proven goalscorer at every level. We feel that once we get everybody fit we'll create even more openings for him.

"We've missed Michael when he's not been in our team through injury. He was the difference today along with Alan Shearer - who is still a very big player for our team.

"We felt the two of them today could get at West Ham's back four and score goals and that's how it turned out.

"It wasn't a silky passing game because we are missing a lot of our players. We are just delighted with the three points.

"West Ham are a handful at home and they tried to get after us. We shot ourselves in the foot by giving them a penalty and allowing them back into the game.

"It should have been an easy 20 minutes for us but at times we were holding on.

"Strikers make the difference on the day and that's why Michael is valued the way he is.

"He's scored seven goals for us now and goals win and change games."