Shearer has chance to tear up the form book

Newcastle manager says Chelsea are the perfect opposition for curtain-raiser

Yet, amid the uplift and hullabaloo on Tyneside, there must be logic, and it says that when Alan Shearer names his first team as Newcastle United manager this lunchtime, he will be selecting from a squad that has produced just one win in the 12 Premier League games since Boxing Day, a squad with six wins all season, two of which have come against bottom club West Bromwich Albion.

On days like this, that is an inconvenient truth, and it might be considered uncharitable to isolate this before Shearer's first game in charge. It's just that the reality seems worth a mention.

This is why, after all, Shearer has been parachuted in. Newcastle have a squad littered with names as famous and expensive as Owen, Nicky Butt and Obafemi Martins, but so do today's visitors Chelsea. The league table shows that Chelsea have won 10 away games this season already.

There are other stats that provide context for Shearer's first match as manager. At Christmas, Newcastle conceded five at home to Liverpool. Three more were conceded at Blackburn and in the last home game they conceded another three to Arsenal. Three of Newcastle's last four matches have been lost. In this 12-game spell, there has been one clean sheet. As Rafael Benitez would say: "These are the facts."

It is understandable that Owen should write: "Alan's been around and seen it all, he knows what he wants and what he has, and like me he knows we have a squad of players that is far better than the league table suggests. But we have lacked confidence, and we haven't played well. Now the last eight games are like a new chapter."

Arsène Wenger said yesterday – admiringly – that Shearer being able to change Newcastle's psychology like this amounts to "mental doping".

But Owen also knows that new chapters at Newcastle can be short.

Signed in August 2005 by Graeme Souness, Owen is on to his sixth manager in under four years. Glenn Roeder, Sam Allardyce, Kevin Keegan and Joe Kinnear preceded Shearer. In Nigel Pearson and Chris Hughton, there have been two caretakers to listen to as well. For Butt, signed by Sir Bobby Robson, there has been even more change.

Add the recently departed Dennis Wise's influence over the past 14 months and it is unsurprising that the squad is lop-sided: too many similar midfielders and attackers, not enough defenders, especially defiant ones.

So, while this has been a mess of a season, Newcastle's mess is also the creation of the four seasons before this one.

Shearer is not being asked merely to turn around a season, this has been a mini-era of drift and decline. He knows this. But as he watched Newcastle's Under-18s beat Sheffield Wednesday's yesterday afternoon, Shearer will have been mulling over defensive injuries to Sébastien Bassong and Steven Taylor.

He will have been heartened to hear of Didier Drogba's injury. Shearer is now into the nitty-gritty of match detail and it may be a relief after all the swooning mood music.

"I keep hearing people say it is a tough game," he said yesterday of Chelsea. "I understand that. They have world-class players and a great, experienced manager. They are going for the Premier League and they are in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

"However, I still think it is a great game for us to have. I am not having the fact people keep saying 'we will not get anything here' – I do not accept that, I really don't. We have to take something."

What impetus that would bring, because after Chelsea it is Stoke City away next Saturday evening. More stats: Stoke have won eight games this season – all at home. Newcastle have won two away.

"To transform a team in eight games, that is not a manager anymore, that is a magician," Wenger added. That shows the scale of the task.

But a new chapter is a must; the same old story will take Newcastle down to the Championship.

Looney Toon? Changes in the dug-out

*Seven managers have taken the reins at St James' since the departure of Sir Bobby Robson in 2004

*Graeme Souness

September 2004 to February 2006

*Glenn Roeder

February 2006 to May 2007

*Nigel Pearson (caretaker)

May 2007

*Sam Allardyce

May 2007 to January 2008

*Kevin Keegan

January to September 2008

*Joe Kinnear

September 2008 to February 2009

*Chris Hughton (caretaker)

February to April 2009