ALAN Shearer insists that saving Newcastle from the drop is not an impossible job.

The former England captain is yet to taste victory in five Barclays Premier League matches since taking temporary charge of the side in a desperate bid to save the club from relegation.

The latest blow was Sunday's 3-0 mauling at Liverpool, where he dropped Michael Owen and then saw Joey Barton sent off for an awful two-footed lunge on Xabi Alonso.

Barton will face a fine of two weeks' wages and he will not play again this season because of a three-match ban.

His future at Newcastle is now in doubt after Shearer's withering outburst at the former Manchester City midfielder's lack of self-control.

Newcastle are still three points from safety with just three games left. Two of them are at home against fellow strugglers Middlesbrough and then Fulham before the final day of the season trip to Aston Villa.

But Shearer maintained after the Anfield defeat: "This job is not proving harder than I thought when I took over. I always knew it was a difficult job, but not impossible."

Shearer revealed how Owen was upset to be left out against his former club, but took the decision like the professional he is.

Shearer's reasoning for leaving out Owen was that he knew Newcastle would be under intense pressure and forced back against title-chasing Liverpool.

In that situation he believed that Owen, predominantly a penalty-box poacher, would have less success than the more powerful Obafemi Martins and Mark Viduka.

Shearer said: "Michael Owen wasn't happy to be left out. I didn't want him to be happy.

"But he took it, and he has been very professional about it. That is what he is.

"The frustration has been that we haven't been creating chances. That's the problem. Is Martins more likely to score one from 25 yards than Michael? Probably.

"We knew we would be feeding on scraps, and we had a couple. It wouldn't have been a different story if they had gone in, but I was just trying something different. He took it the right way, (he was) very professional about it."

Full story in tomorrow's The Northern Echo