Kevin Keegan insists there will be no fall-out with Newcastle striker Obafemi Martins over his reaction to being substituted at Birmingham.Martins impressed in what his first start under Keegan after returning from the African Nations Cup with an ankle injury and set up the equaliser for Michael Owen in a 1-1 Premier League draw at St Andrews on Monday.

But he showed his displeasure when taken off with 10 minutes to go and appeared to ignore Keegan's offer of a handshake before sitting at the back of the dug-out.

Keegan felt the need to console Martins and admitted the player had every reason to be unhappy as he stressed the move was purely tactical and no reflection on Martins' performance.

It was a similar scenario to Tottenham striker Robbie Keane's reaction after he had been replaced during the second half of Sunday's match at Manchester City.

But Keegan welcomed the passion shown by Martins which he felt was echoed by the character and determination shown by his side after trailing to a first half goal from James McFadden.

Keegan said: "I haven't got a problem with him (Martins). I wouldn't be happy to fetch a player off and then seeing them doing cartwheels and being pleased to come off.

"You've seen it with Robbie Keane as well the other night. I like that in players. All right, I went over to him afterwards and said I know it hurts when you come off.

"But it was not for his performance. It was just tactical and myself saying 'let's just shore things up here'. Obafemi put a really good stint in.

"He has every right to be disappointed but I think whoever I fetched off at Birmingham would have been disappointed because they certainly were committed.

"There is no problem. We won't fight or fall out."

Keegan is hoping the point at Blues will be a platform for an upturn in fortunes.

He said: "The players showed a lot of character and resilience. They've been accused of not having enough of that so maybe it is a start of something really good.

"When you look at the names on our team sheet, we shouldn't be down the bottom, but we are, and they've got to show another side to their character.

"It is different for some of these players but I've never doubted their character. You've never heard me once criticise any of them.

"I think the character is there. The confidence has been the big problem and we will take some confidence from that second half performance at Birmingham.

"Away from home, it was probably equal to how we played at Arsenal in the first half of my first game in the FA Cup."

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