"I know you're going to say he didn't cost a lot, pounds 1.5m, and the pressure must have been on Les Ferdinand but I think he had the toughest job because he came so late. Ferdinand and Barton he was confident about - "I'd watched them a lot, the Premiership holds no fears for them" - but his gambles, if they could be described as such, have come off too."I'm particularly pleased about Shaka," he said. "I'm beginning to enjoy sitting back and watching things develop," he said. "We're going to get better."Even in a summer when football clubs made Viv Nicholson's "spend, spend, spend" declaration seem like the voice of parsimony, Newcastle were extravagant. Les Ferdinand, Barton, David Ginola and Shaka Hislop cost pounds 14m and that fortune will only seem truly well spent if the championship comes to Tyneside for the first time in 69 years.Still the portents are good. Keegan is more than satisfied at the way his expensive acquisitions have fitted in.

Tyneside, whipped to a frenzy of anticipation by the progress under Keegan, waits and expects. Keegan made a mock grimace and then smiled in recognition of a kindred competitive spirit. Gillespie was on his way to winning the test of skills.Just as Newcastle are currently winning the test of skills in the Premiership with four wins out of four, the only top-flight team with a perfect record. "Remember who signs your contract," was the hidden warning. Not that it made a scrap of difference because Burridge, 43, would risk a broken leg to save if he was playing a team of under-fives and he soared defiantly to tip his manager's shot over the bar. Anyone who wonders whether the will burns as strongly in the Newcastle manager now his boots are made for training, needed only to watch him at play. Keegan was in a shooting competition with Warren Barton and Keith Gillespie as part of an Adidas promotion and he was using any device to prevail. "Remember who I am," Kevin Keegan bellowed across the Durham University training ground.

In some people that would be a boastful plea for recognition. However, the Newcastle manager was shouting to his reserve team goalkeeper, John Burridge, and the message was wholly different. Paul Cole's colt would first need to be supplemented to the field, but after yesterday's performance - on good to soft ground, too - it will be a difficult temptation to resist.. The jockey was heard to comment on dismounting that he would be delighted to ride Riyadian in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in three weeks' time.

"It's up to the boss [Dick Hern]," Carson said, "but he's good enough to run in any race he picks."The day's second three- runner event, the Troy Stakes, followed a similar pattern. Singspiel was sent off even shorter than Alhaarth, at 30-100, but asserted his superiority only below the distance, which left Riyadian, in the 12-furlong conditions race, by far the afternoon's most impressive winner.Riyadian was running for the first time since finishing six lengths behind Lammtarra in the Derby, but won in a canter as soon as Carson, who looked as if he might be boxed in two out, found room and asked him to quicken. "I just let him go his own pace and obviously it wasn't quick enough. It was a bit of a performance really."A more demanding test of Alhaarth's quality may come in the Group One Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket next month. The bookmakers saw no reason to adjust their prices for next season's Classics, and the best prices about Alhaarth are still 12- 1 (Coral) for the 2,000 Guineas and 8-1 with the same firm for the Derby."It was the shortest race he's run in and he's always had a lead before," Willie Carson, the winner's jockey, said.