Michael Owen - the worst kind of scum

What an absolute little shit Michael Owen is.

It was Liverpool Football Club that turned him from being a school boy in Chester to being a multi-millionaire and global superstar and he repays us by signing for our biggest and most hated rivals.

What goes through that stupid boy’s mind? He doesn’t need the money and he’s got nothing to prove to the England manager (who basically doesn’t rate him) so why permanently alienate all Liverpool fans who may in time have forgiven his defection to Madrid and come to remember him as the boy who scored the goals that won the FA Cup.

Is he hoping to finally win a league medal by making just enough appearances sandwiched around his annual spate of injuries? And if he was to win that medal through being in the right squad at the right time rather than as a result of his own ability and efforts, will that really justify betraying fans who once idolised him, chanted his name and paid his wages?

Did he fail to heed the fact that the last man to play for both clubs, Paul Ince, ended up despised by both sets of supporters? Does he think Old Trafford’s prawn sandwich brigade will be any more tolerant of his impotent performances on returns from injury than the self-styled ‘best fans in the world’, a.k.a. the Toon Army, were?

Given the player was a free-agent having fleeced Newcastle worse than he did Liverpool, I had considered whether he might be a decent signing for us but concluded he would not. For every goal spree he enjoyed in his time at Liverpool, the player endured a hapless period where chances were squandered and the team suffered. 2000-2001 was probably his best season beginning in form with 6 goals in the first 5 games and ending on fire with 9 in the last 6 including that brace against Arsenal at the Millennium Stadium. Overall that season, Owen netted a then personal best 24 goals but it is easy to overlook the fact that from November to February inclusive, he scored just 5 goals. That four-month period included some memorably impotent performances against Middlesbrough at home (0-0) and Crystal Palace away (1-2) which had Clinton Morrison mocking Owen’s finishing.

Then there were the penalties. In Houllier’s final season at the club, Owen’s inability to convert a spot-kick led to our elimination from the FA Cup to newly promoted Portsmouth. In total, Owen took 23 penalties for the club in competitive games scoring just 13 – a pathetic conversion rate of just 57%.

I can’t help but think back to the second-leg Champions League quarter-final of 2002 – regarded by many as the moment Houllier’s reign went into decline. In most people’s eyes, Houllier’s substitution of Dietmar Hamann for Vladimir Smicer was the reason we lost the late winner that saw Bayer Leverkusen triumph 4-3 on aggregate but earlier in that game Michael Owen missed a series of very presentable chances including one-on-ones that, if converted, might have seen Liverpool progress comfortably. Had we progressed, Houllier’s claim that we were “10 games from greatness” might have been proven correct. Of course, it might not have but the point remains that Owen’s profligacy meant we never got to find out.

When we won the Champions League in 2005, beating Bayer Leverkusen en route, the key factor was that players scored goals at crucial times. That wins you the biggest prizes just as missing the big chances when they come along leads to failure.

Given Owen’s proneness to injury, frequent spells of poor form, and the simple fact that Rafa wouldn’t want that type of player in his Liverpool team, I concluded that I would not want to see Michael back at Anfield. By that token, I should conclude he will prove inadequate for Man Ure but if I am wrong and he has an Indian summer left in his career, from our point of view he is at the worst possible club to experience it.

Personally I wish him two trophyless years of injuries, missed chances, dreadful form and comically unsuccessful penalties resulting in apathy from the Mancs to go with the contempt he has now earned from us. On the positive side, in every season since 1997 the team Michael has played in has failed to win the League so let’s hope that continues until 2011.