MICHAEL OWEN WAS IN EBULLIENT mood on Saturday night, and no wonder. He needs only another 194 goals to break Jackie Milburn’s Newcastle United goalscoring record. It will be Alan Shearer’s all-time mark soon, of course, after he moved to 199 goals, within one of Milburn, in this win. While Shearer soldiers on to cement his place in history, Owen’s value in the here and now is difficult to overestimate.

Shearer famously said when he signed that he was “just a sheet metal worker’s son”; in Owen, Newcastle have a master plasterer, applying finishes that mask the shoddy workmanship of his colleagues. His hat-trick was his seventh goal in eight games for Newcastle, who have won six and drawn one of those matches. With Owen hogging the spotlight, the focus could shift away from the shortcomings that have made Graeme Souness’s future a matter for debate, even though they were as visible at Upton Park as usual.

Owen is no doubt relishing the trip to Anfield on Boxing Day and the chance to prove to Liverpool that they made a mistake by not re-signing him in August. “When I came here I promised that I would score goals, but it wasn’t much of a promise because I’ve always scored goals.” Owen said. “As a team we’ve got a lot of goals in us. We have a lot of creative players and the big man up front (Shearer). He ’s always going to give you a few moments.”

“At half-time someone said to me how dangerous they both looked and I said I just wish they were both 25,” Souness, the manager, said. Owen is 26 and Shearer is 35. Yet blood seems to pump extra-quickly through Shearer’s slowing legs when there is a scoring chance and he was back to make a crucial clearance off the line in the second half.

“I don’t think anyone in their right mind will say Alan Shearer will stop scoring goals until the day he hangs up his football boots. I will be the same,” Owen said. “No matter what I might lose, it will always be my instinct to score.”

“I had a conversation before the game how few partnerships there are around today. ” Alan Pardew, the West Ham United manager, said. “As an out-and-out pair they take some beating. Newcastle had no control over the game but they scored four goals.”

It helped Newcastle that West Ham’s centre backs are inexperienced. James Collins and Anton Ferdinand: combined age 42, combined career Premiership appearances 20. “I could sense that their whole back four were very nervous and I think it’s because Michael, as well as being exceptionally quick, has a really, really sharp football brain,” Souness said.

Owen steered a shot past Roy Carroll for the opener. West Ham equalised when Titus Bramble’s clearance rebounded off Nolberto Solano for an own goal but Owen scored — with his shoulder — just before half-time. Owen set up Shearer for the third, then Shola Ameobi’s handball enabled Marlon Harewood to score from the penalty spot and set up an exciting finish. Owen’s third came into an empty net at the end.

Pardew spent the previous two seasons enduring sniping from sections of the West Ham support who felt that his allegedly direct playing style jarred with the club’s ethos, but this was a performance in harmony with tradition: wonderfully entertaining and ultimately fruitless. Pardew was frustrated to concede four times, but he might have felt equally upset that his team did not score five against Newcastle’s dodgy defence.