by azriahmad » Thu Aug 12, 2004 12:42 am
I think the Owen deal may be a red herring because Real have an awesome firepower but are rather imbalanced as they need a holding midfielder. It is no great secret that Viera is coveted by any caoch/manager in Europe and remain as Real's main target.
Owen may be in as a squad player with Raul having suffered a bad season for the whole of 2003/2004. Owen himself has not really been on fire lately.
Sometime back Real sold their training ground which is located on a peice of prime land in Madrid and managed to reduce their debts substantially. Their success in the CL has enabled them to obtain financing from some Spanish financial institution and hence are able to continue to buy big but then are still dwarfed by Cheski.
If they really do go for Owen, most likely it would involve a player swap as make weight but with Morrientes having played last night and scored, he is unlikely to be released by his coach. I think the desire to move is stronger on Owen's part than Real's.