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Keegan: Confident

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Kevin Keegan hailed Michael Owen after Newcastle's 2-0 win at home to Sunderland - and said he is 'pretty sure' the England star will stay at St James' Park.

Newcastle did not always convince in the game, but Owen was a constant threat, opening the scoring after just four minutes and then winning and converting a penalty just before half-time.

And Keegan believes they were fortunate to have a player of his calibre to make the difference.

"I can't say we played fantastically, but we kept going," he told Sky Sports. "We worked very, very hard.

"We're lucky we've got someone like Michael Owen in the side who can make things happen and score goals.

"Today, we needed somebody like that - a big player who's used to a big stage."

Confident

However, while Owen and Newcastle have started to find form, there are doubts about whether he will stay at the club beyond the end of the season.

Keegan has played down those fears, though, and insists he is confident the striker will stay.

"I'm fairly confident, but until the chairman and his advisers get round the table, which will probably be in the next week or 10 days... I know Michael wants to stay and I've made it absolutely clear how I feel, so I'm pretty sure he'll stay.

"There's very few clubs that any of the players here would leave Newcastle for where they're going to go higher, and I would include Michael in that, because I don't consider Liverpool or Man City or any of these clubs that would possibly want Michael to be any bigger than Newcastle United."

Signings

Owen has relished the role of captain at Newcastle, and Keegan feels that he - along with the other 'leaders' at the club - have created a good balance with the young players.

As a result, he is only looking to make a couple of signings over the summer as he looks to challenge next season.

"He's a really good leader of the club and we've got three or four - Nicky Butt, Mark Viduka in his own way and certainly Abdoulaye Faye and Habib Beye at the back.

"So we've got plenty of leaders and the others, the younger players like Joey Barton, can pick up off them.

"We've got a nice blend in and, like all clubs, we'd like to strengthen, but I don't think we need 11 like we got last year - we just need two or three."

He added: "I've always said that the only time we'll know what we've got and where we can go with that is when we actually get talking to players and we start to bring them in.

"It's easy to say we'd like this or we'd like that or we'd like £100m to spend like some clubs are talking about, but the reality is that, whatever we've got to spend, we've got to spend it wisely."