The last month at Newcastle United has seen the landscape of the club change almost inconceivably. While a month ago our fans were united in frustration at our clueless manager and much maligned chairman, we are now united in a sense of optimism not seen since the peak of Bobby Robson’s tenure.

A new manager, Sam Allardyce, renowned for improving his clubs not only on the pitch but off of it as well. A new owner in Mike Ashley who seems intent on turning us into a major force, and is apparently willing to spend significant portions of his vast fortune to do so. Fans of The Toon could be forgiven for pinching themselves to make sure this last month hasn’t all been one cruel dream.

Yet, despite all the positives that have come from the last month or so, there is still one major issue that hangs over us.

Is Michael Owen happy to stay and be part of the revolution at Newcastle?

Well, no, he’s not. Anyone who thinks that he is is kidding themselves quite frankly.

The silence from Owen regarding the issue of whether he wants to stay says it all quite frankly. Especially given he’s been publicly challenged by our chairman, Freddy Shepherd, to commit to staying at the club and still hasn’t said anything on the matter, preferring to focus on his England future. Nothing new there of course, but would a few words be too much to ask for? Sam Allardyce publicly announcing that Owen’s rumoured release clause (believed to be £9m) means he’s powerless to stop him leaving is a pretty good indication that Sam has gotten his answer from Owen, and is now keen to peddle him as soon as possible.

On the face of it, losing Owen would seem like a massive blow to the club, given that he’s unarguably our most proven player on a world stage. He’s scored goals in The Champions League, World Cup, European Championship, every big competition you can think of that he can feasibly appear in. One would think, based on that, we should be desperate to hold onto him.

Personally, though, I’ll be glad to see the back of him.

First of all, he doesn’t fit into any position in Allardyce’s preferred formation, namely the 4-3-3/4-5-1 system that he predominantly played in his time at Bolton. Much like Chelsea’s system, this requires a powerful center forward ala Drogba or Kevin Davies to be the focal point of the attack. You then have two pacey, skillful players either side of him that can both score goals and create them, players like Robben and Joe Cole at Chelsea or Diouf and Anelka at Bolton. Owen isn’t physically imposing enough to be our target man, while he’s not got the skill to really worry defenders in wide positions as a wide man.

Trying to fit him into either of these positions would be just a waste of time really, and a waste of his talents i.e playing alongside a player who really gets involved in the game a lot, allowing Owen to pop up now and again to convert chances while generally contributing sparsely in the build up play.

If he does stay, however, he will have to play. You can’t leave him on the bench, especially if the team is struggling. So Allardyce would have to find a way to accommodate him, almost certainly through finding a new system to the one he knows best. While this may help somewhat in the short-term, it would hinder the long-term development of the team. Especially when Owen leaves, which he doubtless ultimately will. While Shearer was one of the greatest servants our club has ever seen, there were times in his last season or two where the team would probably have benefited from him being excluded now and again, but due to his sheer stature no manager had the guts to do so. Same with Parker last year. His form was woeful at times, most of the time in fact, but as Roeder had made him club captain he couldn’t drop him.

I’m sick of us accommodating players based on something other than their present usefulness to the team, and while Owen would doubtless be a lot more use to us than Parker was last year, I still believe he’d be hindering our long-term progress.

Aside from any tactical mumbo-jumbo, however, he clearly doesn’t want to be here either. He’s not said a word in the public about wanting to stay here which, given the level interest in his situation, is all you need to know. Of course he won’t come out and say he wants to leave, just like he didn’t when he left Liverpool. That would go against his squeaky clean, model professional image that he’s built up for himself while really being little more than a snake in the grass who won’t look back as he leaves town, just like he didn’t after manipulating his way out of Liverpool to go to Madrid.

The only problem is that we may struggle to find someone willing to take him off our hands, which I’m sure will bruise his ego. Liverpool clearly don’t want him back, and he’d not fit into the Chelsea system. Arsenal and Man U are possibilities as both could do with an out and out goalscorer to take advantage of the fabulous football the other members of the team play. But even they could be put off by his massive wages and questionable fitness.

I’ll be very disappointed if he starts the season here at Newcastle, because all he’ll be doing is auditioning for the next transfer window, or the one after that or whenever he can get out of Toon. So get rid of him now, save ourselves shelling out massive wages to a guy who doesn’t want to be here just so he can put himself in the shop window.

No doubt if the summer goes on long enough and it becomes evident that nobody is interested then that’ll be the time for Owen to reveal his plans for the future, saying that he’s always been happy at Newcastle and really wants to stay and be part of something special here. Lies which will be forgotten as soon as he gets half a chance to leave us.

For me he represents everything that I hate about the outgoing regime at boardroom level at St. James’ Park. An expensive signing, one we payed spectacularly over the odds for, on massive wages with ridiculous clauses allowing him to leave for significantly less than what we paid for him. A signing we made while ignoring other pressing needs in our team in order to placate the fans, the ultimate trophy signing.

With our new owner and new manager, it’s time for a fresh start.

That means clearing out all the mistakes from our previous regimes, which Owen is the epitome of.