LAST night on BT Sport, Michael Owen told the story of the collapse of his dream return to Liverpool in the summer of 2009.
It was the tale of promises — both kept and broken — and the unfortunate concatenation of circumstances which saw him unable to return to the club following his spell in the Galactico-heavy Real Madrid side of 2004-5.
Liverpool had apparently offered £10m for his return and Michael was all set to board a plane until Newcastle United offered £16m. Madrid saw no reason why they should lose money for mere sentiment and said it was the North East or nowhere.
Michael still wanted to come back even when his time at Newcastle was over, but Liverpool had moved on. There was to be no dream move.
Hundreds of tweets describe this story as “honest” and “revealing”, adding that there was a palpable sense of disappointment in his voice due to his love of the club. Maybe he was hard done by after all.
Sorry Michael, but I remember things differently.
Move back to Anfield? I’m amazed we took the phone call.
It should be said that Owen was a phenomenal footballer for Liverpool. Every Red of that age knows the impact he made from his introduction as a fresh-faced 17-year-old at Selhurst Park at the end of the 1996-97 season. It seemed we’d be blessed not once, but twice. We now had two teenage geniuses in a short spell.
Three years earlier, we were blessed with Robbie Fowler’s mixture of skill and cheek. Robbie’s attitude was never borne of arrogance, more of a “I can do this, isn’t it great?” sense. Something joyous, something to share.
Michael was different. There was a sense that Robbie’s gifts were simply that — gifts. God given, if you will. Michael had to work at his.
While Fowler had guile, Owen was pace. You can easily picture his favourite type of goal. One v one, open up the body, bend it round the ‘keeper. The forgotten game against Boavista of Portugal, on the day of the World Trade Centre atrocities, was a perfect example. That was an Owen-trademark strike.
And yet he was never as popular as Fowler. Maybe that’s because he was adopted by England following his goal against Argentina, where Fowler was strictly and always Liverpool. Hardly his fault, of course.
Not as popular then but no less loved. Owen’s name was sung loudly around the country. We knew what we had.
Then came 2001.
Earlier that season he’d started working on his left foot. It was fine, of course, but it bothered him that it wasn’t as good as his right. He ended up winning the most one-sided FA Cup final ever with a left-foot drive, Liverpool’s second of a treble of trophies. He could do no wrong. Then, at least.
Two years later, as Liverpool began to fade a little, there were rumblings. Owen’s contract was due to expire and the club had already been burned by Steve McManaman’s Madrid move. Surely they couldn’t lose a huge name for sod all money.
“I had it in my contract that I could go back for a certain amount of money”
Michael Owen always had his ❤️ set on a return to Anfield 🙏#PLTonight pic.twitter.com/dSV3V34XXw
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) 25 August 2018
Michael played the situation down, urging Reds not to panic. He was definitely signing and all would be well. But there was nothing going on. Maybe he’d lost his pen.
Gerard Houllier bought Djibril Cisse for a huge sum, promising that he would play alongside the English striker, not replacing him.
Yeah, OK.
By the time Rafa Benitez took over, Owen was on his way. His contract had been run down to such an extent that Liverpool’s prime asset went for just £8m plus Antonio Nunez — who was injured in his first training session.
There’s a story going around about that time — possibly apocryphal — which claims that Rafa asked if he was loyal to the club. Michael said he was. The Spaniard replied: “Then why did your agent offer you to me when I was at Valencia.”
Furthermore, we didn’t have enough time to seriously replace him. There was talk of Fernando Morientes coming over as part of the deal with Madrid, but no dice. Owen sat on the bench in the Champions League qualifier against Sturm Graz of Austria to ensure he wouldn’t be cup tied for his new masters. Madrid played Morientes to ensure he was. The whole deal stank.
When Michael talks of moving to Madrid because he didn’t want to miss the opportunity of playing for the World’s Biggest Club (TM) it would be difficult to argue. Liverpool were abject in 2004. Simply terrible. The football was of a beige, turgid variety and no one could blame Owen from wanting to move from a club where Igor Biscan regularly played centre back.
But the move served Owen only. He could have helped the club by announcing his intentions early and, thus, secure the club a huge fee and, more importantly, a chance to replace him, but no. There’s no question of impropriety here, but Madrid and Michael did very well while the club he loved were royally shafted.
Sympathy? For that?
When he was ready to come back, Liverpool were in a different world. European Cup winners in 2005, another final reached, Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard, “the best midfield in the world”, and so on. Liverpool didn’t need him.
He was jeered on his return with Newcastle and then Manchester United and, although there’s a little bit of forgiveness for him nowadays, it should not be forgotten that he dumped on the club and the new manager.
Many see his move to Old Trafford as the final betrayal, but his career was over then. Also, plenty of us older sweats had seen that transfer coming for years. It would be unthinkable for any homegrown Liverpool player to go there, but that one seemed almost inevitable.
Plenty will disagree with this take. That’s fine. However, some of us will wonder why Michael only chose to discuss his possible return to the club, not his departure.
Funny that.
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Pics: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda Photo
Always found the photos of Owen above the toilet door in the Albert amusing. Not sure they are still there. Weren’t last time I was there
Spot on Karl. It wasn’t his desire to play for Real or even the want to get away from Liverpool that was the problem, see Xabi Alonso’s hero status, it was the fact that he was going to sign a new deal…any minute now…defo… but instead ran his contract down so we got 20p and a packet of space raiders for him.
Even with the value of Nunez (such that it was) and the fact that market values were nowhere near what they are now, the £8.5m fee that we received was an insult. A player of his calibre should have easily been in the £20m+ bracket at the time.
The fact that the timing of the deal meant that we were left with striking options of Milan Baros, who scored about as often as any other number 5 in the league, and Djibril Cisse who has spent more time offside than any other person in history, also sticks in the craw.
He was like a rat off a sinking ship when it suited him but as soon as that ship looked to be sailing into the sunset, he wanted to get back onboard. Fuck off Owen, where were you in Istanbul.
Great piece. Well in, Karl
Bit harsh. Maybe he was really rejected twice by Liverpool after he came back from abroad.
You lot seem to act like you knows all the ins and outs of how he left Liverpool whereas to me it sounds like a lot of guesswork and conjecture on your part.
You are very bitter about him supposedly running down his contract and the club then only getting £8m for him. So what was the club’s board and management doing at the time? Were they all playing tiddleywinks in the boardroom? They were hardly powerless in all this. They could have given him an ultimatum at 2 years out – either sign a new contract or we have to sell you for a whopping fee.
He was not, is not, a Scouser. So it’s not fair to judge him by the same standards of Robbie Fowler who would never have left for Man United in a million years. Nor would I – I cannot stand United. But maybe Owen didnt bear that grudge against United that a lot of us do. Or maybe he really was refused a return to Liverpool twice and thought, well, if you really don’t want me, i’ll just head over to this other big club who do still think I’m good enough to play at the top level.
I do think it was a mistake and it still doesn’t look right to see him in that sh*te United shirt they showed him in on BT Sport last night, standing behind the Premier League trophy no less. But jeez, some of you on here must lead pretty faultless lives the way you carry on eh, good for you.
Yog I agree totally.
I’m with Karl and William. Michael Owen can get to fuck.
Still dead to me the little manc skip rat
I always have a problem with the slagging off of Owen, it smacks of small club mentality.
Owen joins a long line of Liverpool legends who has left the club for greener pastures. Keegan, Souness, Rush all left for their own benefit. The difference is that the club was able to cope. Do you think any of those players would have stayed if it couldn’t?
Since Owen the Club have not retained a single non-scouse world class player. Not one. Suarez, Alonso, Mascherano, Torres, all left the club when we needed them. Even Gerrard wanted out for a piece of the Abramovich funds.
The reality is that certain sections of the Liverpool fanbase have never been comfortable with Owens England career or that he was seen as superior to Fowler by everyone out side of the club. This transfer gave ample opportunity for that bias to manifest into something a little more ugly that would go on for almost 15yrs and counting.
Owen is a Liverpool legend and should be treated as one.
The ship has sailed, move on Mickey. You are more English than Scouse. Lucas Leiva is more Scouse than youse!
Leeds Utd fan here. Two words: Harry Kewell.
Definitely respect Karl’s opinion here, but I would take a different line. It’s pretty much impossible to defend the sight of him in a United shirt, although as an earlier comment sets out, maybe it’s understandable why he would go with it. But I think there’s no doubting this desire to return, not once, but twice, and when he spoke about his injuries, you do have to consider whether or not Ged rampantly overplayed him, to the detriment of his health, at such a young age, and whether the club dealt with those injuries as well as they might have done. Also, he has a different character. What I’m getting at is, if the club didn’t force the contract issue sufficiently (see Emre Can more recently) then it’s hard to blame him 100% for going to Real Madrid. McManaman did the exact same thing, surely?! We had been warned. This was also the same summer when Steven Gerrard all but signalled he was on the way out – a process that was repeated again 12 months later. The whole thing was a bit of a mess and while I think Owen holds regrets – and well he might – at least some of the circumstances were down to the shambolic state of the club at the time. He scored a bundle of important goals for us and I don’t think he deserves castigation.
He deliberately run his contract down and issued a statement at the end of the 04 season that he wants the club , the club wants him and that he has a busy summer of football ahead at the 2004 Euro”s after which he was having a 2 week holiday to recharge his batteries and would sign when he came back. During his holiday he met agents of Madrid in New York. Got to say signing for the 2 utd”s is irrelevant