by account deleted by request » Tue May 08, 2007 8:24 pm
I know many people on here wont agree, infact many people on here wouldn't want him back for 10p nevermind £10million.
I think for £10million he is definitely worth getting. A fit Owen would guarantee goals. Maybe even enough to win the prem. After so long out he will be eager to play ,have recharched his batteries and maybe even sorted out his hamstring problems.
Sell Bellamy for maybe £8million and get Owen back for £10million (sounds like a bargain to me)
Anyway on to the story :-
Price is right for Premiership big guns to give Owen the stage he deservesMatt Dickinson
Manchester United have scored by far the most goals in the Barclays Premiership this season but could still do with a reliable poacher. Only Dirk Kuyt, of Liverpool’s quartet of forwards, can be sure of being at Anfield in August. And then there are the misfiring Andriy Shevchenko and Salomon Kalou at Stamford Bridge.
Replenishing their attacking resources will be at the forefront of the minds of the leading managers and one name will surely figure alongside Fernando Torres, David Villa and Jermain Defoe as the top clubs balance needs with budgets. At 27, Michael Owen is by far and away his country’s leading scorer and, because of unusual circumstances, is available for less than £10 million.
Sir Alex Ferguson and Rafael Benítez could spend a long time scouring the transfer market before they will find a striker with a career ratio of 0.51 goals per game for that sort of money. And, as a pained Steve McClaren will tell you after England’s struggles in front of goal, a big-match temperament is priceless.
Having been ruled out for most of this season with a serious knee injury, Owen insists that he is back stronger than ever and those close to him can detect a renewed appetite for football. Removing him from action for ten months has relit his competitive fires, although his delight at returning has quickly been tested by two defeats for Newcastle United.
There is an argument that Owen has to stay at Newcastle and drag them up the league to repay a debt that comes from having played only 13 times in two injury-ravaged seasons. It is an argument that might hold water if Tottenham Hotspur or Sunderland were bidding, but could Owen seriously be expected to turn down United or Liverpool and the chance to compete for the title and to play in the Champions League?
He has spoken many times about the guilt that he feels towards the club who rescued him from an unhappy year at Real Madrid, but when they outbid Liverpool by £5 million two years ago, Newcastle knew that they were batting far above their station. It is why they had to put release clauses in his contract and to make him the highest-paid Englishman in the Premiership on more than £110,000 a week.
They did so knowing that, for the clauses not to be triggered, they would have to be competing at the top end of the table and to have become a ride worth staying on. Having just removed the second manager in Owen’s time with the departure of Glenn Roeder, they have hardly kept up their side of the deal. Newcastle have suffered terrible luck with Owen’s injury, among others, but the club remain a byword for instability and chronic underachievement.
It is a situation ripe for predators, particularly if the encouraging signs of Owen’s first two comeback matches – the robust challenges, the clever runs, even the frustration at the missed chances – are repeated away to Watford on Sunday and in England’s matches against Albania, Brazil and Estonia, in which he will hope to score his first goal since June last year.
If the top clubs decide to pursue other targets, the new manager at St James’ Park (ie, Sam Allardyce) will be lucky beyond his dreams when he inherits a forward with 36 goals in 80 games for England and whose worth has only been enhanced in his long absence. But the new manager should know that it is beyond his control and beyond Newcastle’s. It is down now to Ferguson and Benítez.