Owen hails the Big Sho

After making a brief cameo appearance last night in the Villa game, Michael Owen has heaped praise on the man he replaced, as he appreciated the impact Shola Ameobi has made over the last few weeks. Having nearly been out on his ears to Ipswich in the close season, Shola has played an able role assisting Oba since returning to the side. Owen commented:

"He has always shown what he's capable of. If the fans watched training, they'd have him in the team every week because he does some amazing things on the training pitch.

It's not always happened for him on the pitch, mainly because of injury, but when I first came to Newcastle he was banging in goals left, right and centre under Glenn Roeder. But we know how good he is and he's done very well in the last few games."

Owen also talked about his recent injury and the frustration of missing the mackems match last month:

"It wasn't a serious injury and it's not like I've been out of action for weeks. And it's always nice coming back into a team that has won a game or two. It hasn't been a long term thing it's just been a small injury. It was something that, had we had an international break, I'd have had a chance of making the next game but as it was we've had three games in the space of a few days.

It's been frustrating because I've ended up missing a few games just because of the timing of it, including the Sunderland game which is one I certainly didn't want to miss. You start off the season full of optimism but unfortunately a lot of our optimism was dashed quite early on this season.

It would be nice to just have one season where the off-the-field distractions that seem to follow the club didn't happen. But we still have the FA Cup to go for and there an awful lot of important points to be played over the rest of this season."

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