think about it. we keep our best player, silence the outrage that would have followed if gerrard left, and leave us fans with the argument that the owen argument makes sense after what happened with steve mcmanaman. nobody, including owen himself, wanted to leave on a bosman and play out his last season at walking pace as mcmanaman did.
also, gerard houllier's £120m spending spree that almost brought the club to it's knees should be considered when he brought poor players at inflated prices on absurd wages. it is that bad that by the time we ship players out on loan who are considered surplus to requirements such as cheyrou, diouf, le tallec, vignal etc, we will be subsidising their wages to the tune of £80,000 a week.
then throw in the £2.5m a year hiring of benitez and his staff, the £2m pay off to houllier, the £500,000 to phil thompson and even more wedge to pay up emile heskey, on whom we lost 5m. not to mention finding £120m to finance a new stadium.
by selling owen, we could get two good spanish players in return, including the likely arrival of xabi alonso. it will also allow cisse and baros to shine, whilst allowing benitez to scrap the stereotypical counter attacking that totally relied on owen's ability to escape a defence. owen would also get a new lease of life at the most successful club in european history.
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