I would take Owen back in a flash....

[RedJedi]

Ive nothing against Owen, for me is is up there with Rush and Fowler as one of our best ever strikers. But his injurys rule out any move for me. I hope he sorts him self out and has a good career for now on, just not at Anfield.

[Los Rojos]

I would have taken him back like a shot before he joined Newcastle. I wouldn't anymore though - it's unlikely he'll ever be the player that he was for us it's time for us to look elsewhere.

[Darth Marty]

mmmm, plenty of food for thought here, personaly id take him back if he cost under £10 mill, id much rather have Owen than defoe who would likely cost more!
Had he not gone to newcastle id have jumped at the chance, but, alas, him being there has soured my opinion somewhat...that said i think he would be a GREAT 3rd choice who could maybe play himself fit and become a regular hero again.
Im not ruling this out either..i think its a real possibility seeing as the geordies fancy crouchy.......

[cinco tazas]

I understand exactly what you're getting at, but Owen is not the solution - too injury prone and too much money. We are short of a Rush / Fowler (at his peak) / Owen type player. We create many, many chances, but with the strikers we have at the club today not as reliable as finisher as we need IMHO.

[Johnny]

Owen said he was leaving us in order to win medals the yr before we won the CL.He will look back and regret leving us,he`s made some stupid decisions.

[Boogs]

http://www.anfieldroad.com/news/latest/2007103/a12192118b.html

Not a bad article on the lad and you can understand some of the reasons why he left.

Former Liverpool striker Michael Owen has been reflecting on the biggest decision of his career, a decision that saw him miss out on a Champions League winners’ medal, and now sees him playing for a club who seem destined to remain mid-table underachievers. When he went to Real Madrid, before he’d played a competitive game for new boss Rafael Benítez, the impression he gave was that he had to move to Real if he wanted to win the bigger prizes in the game. Liverpool had underachieved under Houllier, leaving Owen reluctant to sign a new deal (despite claims he would be doing so soon) and when Madrid came in he couldn’t resist the temptation.

In the end he lasted just one season in Madrid, a season where he rarely played and where Real didn’t win a thing. No matter how you dress it up, it wasn’t what he expected. Then at the end of that first season he had another big decision to make. Liverpool were willing to spend around £12m to bring him back home, a deal that would see them having to pay £4m more than they’d received for him 12 months earlier. Then Newcastle came in too, with an offer much higher, seeing Owen as the key to finally getting some silverware. Owen was worried that if he didn’t leave Madrid there and then, he’d miss too much football and would lose out on an England place. The 2006 World Cup was looming. Liverpool wanted him to force Madrid’s hand – if he refused to move to Newcastle they either had to let Liverpool have him or had to continue paying him his wages for the next six months at least, not to mention being without the money from the transfer fee to help them in their pursuit of more Galacticos. He chatted to Rafa Benítez and Rick Parry, but in the end was too worried about what might happen to his England career and decided to reject Rafa for a second time.

Even at that stage there was still a glimmer of hope for his fans that he might yet get back to Anfield. He reportedly had a £12m buy-out clause in his Newcastle contract which would let him leave at a cut-price should the Geordies not succeed on the pitch in the way Alan Shearer and Freddie Shepherd promised Owen they would. Ironically, Owen missed a large part of his first season at Newcastle due to injury, and was far from fit by the time the World Cup began. He was certainly far from fit by the time it ended, and after being stretchered off within a minute of the start of England’s group game against Sweden his dreams were shattered and his World Cup was over. He’d damaged an anterior ligament in his knee and any chance there might have been of him coming back to Anfield under the buy-out clause were lost. He’s not played since, and although he’s now finally started to do some running, he’s a long way from knowing if he’ll get to play at all this season. Newcastle are upset at losing the services of their expensive signing, and have been offered a fraction of his value in compensation.

Owen tries to keep a brave face on it, but he must be devastated. In fact in his column for The Times, he admits how much he hated his time in the Spanish league. He says of Real: “The club are a law unto themselves, as I discovered in my difficult year there. They are a club like no other, for better and worse. Even in the brief time I was there, I had three managers. You lose a game and it’s a crisis. You arrive back at the airport and it is a media scrum. Then you wake up the next day and find 20 pages devoted to one defeat.”
As a Liverpool player Owen was able to train at Melwood behind closed doors. Apart from kids and, occasionally, an overweight internet fantasist stood on wheelie bins, there was very rarely anything publicised about what went on in training. That wasn’t the case at Real though: “You can’t have shooting practice without it being written that Michael Owen shot 54 times, had so many on target, scored however many goals.”

Owen visited Anfield on many occasions during his year in Spain, and must have felt homesick and full of regret on the night Liverpool knocked Chelsea out of the Champions League on the way to winning number five. Spanish football wasn’t short on atmosphere at big games, but it just wasn’t the same: “There was a great atmosphere at the biggest matches, and yet it is more like a theatre on many nights. That was one of the things that made me hanker for the Premiership.”

To be fair to Owen, he didn’t have the benefit of hindsight when he was given the chance to move to Spain. He worried that if he’d not gone he’d always wonder what might have been. He was worried that he would regret staying at Anfield, especially if Rafa Benítez needed time to bring success whilst Real were busy winning trophies. He says: “I moved out there for all the right reasons. I knew that if I turned down the opportunity, I might regret it all my life. Everyone I spoke to agreed.”

He’d spoken from the earliest days of his professional career of his desire to play abroad one day, something that upset a lot of Liverpool fans. But he was being honest in that respect at least, and when the offer came there was never any doubt in his mind that he’d be going to take it: “In some ways, I had to get it out of my system, a bit like owning a boy-racer car, and yet, looking back, I knew after about two months that I was doing one year and one year only. I knew quickly that I wasn’t going to take to it.”

So the dream turned sour very, very quickly. He soon found that he wasn’t being picked or dropped based on his performances or ability, but because of decisions being made by those higher up in the hierarchy than the manager. Raul was untouchable and didn’t like having to make way for Owen: “I didn’t have a problem with the football. People talk as though I was on the bench all the time, but I started more than half the games in the league. I scored my share of goals, including five in as many matches at one point. But then, in the sixth, I was brought off after 55 minutes, and I wasn’t playing badly. Other players told me it was political and, while I never thought too much about that, it took its toll on me.”

As a striker Owen has played many games where he’s had to patience and wait for a chance to try and score. But his patience in waiting for a chance to be accepted for what he was eventually ran out: “My goal ratio was better than anyone else in the league, never mind the Real team, but then I got taken off in a big Champions League game in Kiev. I am not defeatist, but you think: ‘What more can I do?’ You need the trust of your manager, but I was scoring goals and still coming off. It sickens you and you think: ‘Sod this, I want to go home’.”

Owen was brought up in the countryside of Hawarden, in North Wales just over the border from Chester, as was his wife. Now they were living in temporary accommodation in the city of Madrid, and they all hated it: “The people were nice enough, but I was there with a wife and young daughter in a hotel. We were used to the great outdoors, with sheep in the garden, and, even at 2, my daughter was struggling to fit in. You can say we should have made more effort, but it is difficult when kids are involved, and also there was the language barrier. As many people know, I am part of a tight-knit clan, but I wasn’t able to see as much as I wanted of my family.”

He does try to find some positives out of his time there: “There are plenty of reasons to be glad that I went there. I proved that I could score in any league in the world and I like to think that I proved myself in distinguished company. There were some seriously good players and I remember being more nervous about training than matches. You don’t want the likes of Zinédine Zidane thinking: ‘What have we signed him for?’ You want his respect, so while other players might have been cruising towards the end of their careers, I was desperate to prove myself.”

He was still having doubts as he first set off for the new chapter in his life: “Even if I did feel a wrench on my way to the airport to fly to Madrid, I had to give it a go. The alternative was to sit at home and wonder what might have been.”

He admits he didn’t make any lasting friends at the club and only keeps in contact with the one person he knew before he went out there – David Beckham: “David is probably the only person I am still in contact with at the club. I can’t say that I look for Real’s results, but I will keep an eye out when they play Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Wednesday and Barcelona a week today in La Liga. I hope that they can pick up a trophy. I am glad for the experience, even if the main thing I learnt was that living abroad is not for me.”

There’s no doubt at all that he’ll be watching today’s match at Anfield between Liverpool and Manchester United, and wishing he was playing his part in one of the biggest fixtures in the English league. Instead of being at Anfield he’ll be sitting in the stands at St James’s Park as Newcastle play their equivalent of Liverpool-Man U. But Newcastle against Middlesbrough isn’t quite the same.

[AFII]

FFS, these Owen threads should be banned. Mickey Owen is NOT and NEVER was a world class striker. Nothing to see here.

He scored in more % of the games for us than Robbie and he had the best goals/game in La Liga and his record for England is also excellent.

[El Diego]

If he comes back this season and plays a few games we should bid about 10-12 million and take him back home. I think he would be better as he has a point to prove to a lot of fans.

[marcus50bucks]

He scored in more % of the games for us than Robbie and he had the best goals/game in La Liga and his record for England is also excellent.

:whatever:

Suprise, suprise he has never, never, ever, ever, hit 20 goals in the league.

I would like you to back up that goals/games ratio!!!!

I bet you're now going to tell me that Owen is/was a better finisher than Robbie.

[Red_Polo]

Let's not do this. Please. I'm begging you.







I'M BEGGING YOU!

[AFII]

:whatever:

Suprise, suprise he has never, never, ever, ever, hit 20 goals in the league.

I would like you to back up that goals/games ratio!!!!

I bet you're now going to tell me that Owen is/was a better finisher than Robbie.

OWEN

GOD

The problem is his injuries and not that he doesn't score goals. A fit Owen is a goalmachine just as a fit Robbie is.

[Red_Polo]

Can we not just all agree that it is very unlikely to happen this summer and that as for the idea of him re-signing for us, we'll cross the bridge if/when we come to it? All these arguments about Owen have been done to death, and nobody ever changes their mind.

[Guest]

OWEN

GOD

The problem is his injuries and not that he doesn't score goals. A fit Owen is a goalmachine just as a fit Robbie is.

He probably was a goal machine but offered little in build up play. Look at his perfs for England...rather mediocre if you ask me. Yes you can come up with stats about his goalscoring prowess, but that's never been an issue for me. I'd prefer having someone scoring a little less but offering much more in the play, like Robbie does.

[Guest]

Can we not just all agree that it is very unlikely to happen this summer and that as for the idea of him re-signing for us, we'll cross the bridge if/when we come to it? All these arguments about Owen have been done to death, and nobody ever changes their mind.

Agree mate. It's just boring having these threads all over again.

[AFII]

Let's not do this. Please. I'm begging you.







I'M BEGGING YOU!

I won't do it anymore

If people want to beleive that a fit Owen isn't a world class striker then it's up to them. The problem is his fitness and not his goal scoring record. The way he left us doesn't make him a worse player on the pitch.

I hate the way he left us but I would take a fit Owen back because he would make our team better.

That's my opinion of course

My last post in this thread if someone don't ask me to back up anything.