England striker Michael Owen has ended all the Liverpool transfer speculation, and has ditched Real Madrid to join Newcastle United's Toon Army on a four year deal worth in the region of £16m (€24m). It has been the cause of a huge amount of debate as to where Owen would eventually end up. Newcastle tabled a bid to Real Madrid for the striker last week, but the striker made it clear that his preferred move would be return to his former club Liverpool FC.

Owen flew in to Liverpool from Madrid last night, for a meeting with the Liverpool FC board, and manager Rafa Benitez, with a view to re-signing with the Reds. Obviously the talks broke down, with Liverpool refusing to pay more than £8m. Just hours later Owen then, surprisingly, took a flight to Newcastle, for talks with Freddy Shepherd, the Newcastle Chairman.

Today Owen will be revealed as the latest Newcastle signing subject to his medical this afternoon. Owen, who will wear the vacant number 10 shirt, is a great aquisition for the Toon Army. His goal scoring ability is unquestionable. At Liverpool, where he started his career, he scored 158 goals in 297 games.

His much publicised move to join Real Madrid's "Galacticos" did not go according to plan, and Owen spent most of his time warming the Real Madrid bench, but when called upon he was in stunning form, scoring 13 goals in 36 games, and with more than half of those games, he came on as a substitute!

Recently, with Real Madrid buying Brazilian super-kid Robinho, Owen's place in the pecking order went down. This was a big enough worry for Owen that, fearing his lack of fist-team football may harm his place in the England squad, he telephoned England coach Sven Goran Eriksson for his advice on which club, if any, he should move to.

After the signing, Manager Graeme Souness was delighted, "It is a massive signing for us, we now have the current England number nine and this club has had a history of wonderful centre-forwards over the years".

"He's someone who can become a legend with Newcastle United fans. In football, the hardest thing to get in your team is someone who puts the ball in the back of the net and Michael is the best at doing that for England.". He went on to say, "I can understand people who liken it to the signing of Alan Shearer as Michael is the current England number nine".

With the summer signings of Chelsea's Scott Parker, Turkish International midfielder Emre, Spain's Albert Luque, and now Owen, Souness has made some very shrewd buying, and this should be a sign that Newcastle will be a much harder team to meet this season.

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