Michael Owen: Premiership Winner

With the Mancs’ victory over Chelsea, I suppose congratulations are in order for Michael Owen. He richly deserves a Premiership winners’ medal having started a whole 1 Premiership match for the Mancs (in which he was subbed at half time) and made a further 9 appearances as substitute enabling him to tot up a massive 201 minutes of first team football excluding stoppage time (which for United is quite a bit).

I should imagine that as an ambitious teenager breaking into the Liverpool first team, he expected to win the League at some point in his career but probably envisaged himself contributing more than a solitary goal towards the achievement.

Of course, this isn’t Owen’s achievement at all. Man United would have won the League whether he was on their books or not.

He’ll take his medal though and, based on the tripe in his autobiography, he’ll probably try to justify it by saying he deserved at least one over his career. That’s the nature of the man who left Liverpool at the start of a season they would end as European Champions because he thought they couldn’t match his ambition, and who abdicated himself of responsibility whilst jumping ship after captaining Newcastle to relegation giving a minimal return for the club record £16m they paid to take him off the Real Madrid subs bench.

The hero of St Etienne (for England fans at least) was once viewed as so much whiter than white that he was paid to star in Persil adverts. How ironic that the supporters of the club he represented back then would come to view him as so dirty and sullied.

Having once been hailed as a role model for kids, what message can young fans take as they watch Owen parade the Premiership trophy in a week or so? Something along the lines of: If you want to win the top prizes, all you have to do is urinate on the thousands of supporters that loyally backed you for seven years as you went from youth trainee to international superstar; give them big ‘V’s as you join their most detested rivals talking about the respect and admiration you have for their gob-shite of a manager; spend a couple of years not playing football; rack up the all important 10 appearances, ideally without ever playing longer than 45 minutes, to ensure you can win a medal via a technicality and hope your teammates can do the business.

In Owen’s career he represented Liverpool, Real Madrid, Newcastle and the Scum. The supporters of Liverpool and Newcastle generally despise him. Real fans and United fans will barely remember him.

He could and should have been a Liverpool legend but instead he will be remembered for being on the books of the Man United team that overtook our record of 18 League titles and willed them to do it for his own personal gain.

Enjoy your winners’ medal, Michael. I hope it was worth it.