Owen again... do not read if you hate Owen!!

[CJ]

i think all of this if owen was fit stuff is a bit silly

its like saying if hitler wasnot a nazi

hitler was and owen isnt ever fit for long so it doesnt need considering.

a bit far fetched but you get the point i am making

[Kopite_Colin]

Which is again exactly why you can't just blame Owen, Glove. We didn't / couldn't bid the market value, Newcastle did, and RM didn't have to sell, let alone for a silly £8m that we reportedly wanted / needed.
So he was left with little / no option.

[Red Chilli]

Which is again exactly why you can't just blame Owen, Glove. We didn't / couldn't bid the market value, Newcastle did, and RM didn't have to sell, let alone for a silly £8m that we reportedly wanted / needed.
So he was left with little / no option.

Well, he could have honoured his contract with Madrid.

[Alpha]

i think all of this if owen was fit stuff is a bit silly

its like saying if hitler wasnot a nazi

hitler was and owen isnt ever fit for long so it doesnt need considering.

a bit far fetched but you get the point i am making

That's outrageous!

I mean, it is one thing to criticise Owen for being injury-prone and disloyal but another thing entirely accusing him of WWII atroctities.

OUT OF ORDER.

MODS!!!

[ronan]

Which is again exactly why you can't just blame Owen, Glove. We didn't / couldn't bid the market value, Newcastle did, and RM didn't have to sell, let alone for a silly £8m that we reportedly wanted / needed.
So he was left with little / no option.

he had his options when we offered him a new contract and he repeatedly said he would sit down and discuss it when he never had any intention of doing so.

he had his opotions when rm said he could go and newc kept on upping liverpool's offer, he could have said no im not going to newc. and/or stayed in rm till they let him go be it that summer or in jan.

if he had grown a pair of balls or was'nt more worried about his england career than his club career he wouldnt be in the **** park he's in now.
he's a ****ing whale in a fishbowl,but he's there by his own design.

[Kopite_Colin]

Well, he could have honoured his contract with Madrid.

That's true - but again that's a 2-way street. And if he did want to play regularly in a WC year (and who can blame him) with the change in coach and lack of starts at RM, he didn't have too many options.

[Hooz]

Maybe we didnt have that money to spend. Which then means your blaming off Rafa is wide of the mark and moves the decision firmly back at Owen to move to Newcastle and not hold out for a move to Liverpool. Also, he is sorted for first team footy at Newcastle, could the same be said if he moved back? I doubt it and that is what Owen wants.

Whether or not Benitez had the money doesn't change the situation Owen faced. Either way, holding out for a move back here was a massive risk for him.

[Hooz]

Please clarify - do you mean now, with an untested, rebuilt knee, or in January when he has proven himself again?

Well he's said he's staying at Newcastle now and I'm quite sure Benitez thinks our strikers are sorted, so either way it's all academic.

For me, the sooner the better. We still haven't got a top class goal-scorer.

He's coming back from injury but his career is by no means over.

[kop1te]

As with many others on this site, a fit MO would be a great acquisition. The question is will he ever be fully fit?

I was there in 2001 when he was the only player who could have won us that FA Cup, Fowler is/was my hero but he couldn't have won that game.....

MO was at that time a great player.... Has he ever been a great person in the eyes of the Liverpool family?

[Kopite_Colin]

he had his options when we offered him a new contract and he repeatedly said he would sit down and discuss it when he never had any intention of doing so.

How do you know that he never had any intention? That's just speculation. And why should he sign when we were going nowhere in under GH and there was no sign of the powers that be changing things at the top during that period when his contract was running down? God knows, we were sh*te under GH at the end.

he had his opotions when rm said he could go and newc kept on upping liverpool's offer,

- I don't think that's true - I'm not even sure we made a formal offer, certainly not one that was acceptable to RM

he could have said no im not going to newc. and/or stayed in rm till they let him go be it that summer or in jan.

Not true - there wasn't anything left of that transfer window when it was sorted out (20 Aug 2005) so he couldn't wait amy more that summer. As for Jan 06 - who says RM would let him go then? And would the price change drastically in that period 18 mths into a 4 year deal - no.

For what we were reportedly prepared to offer (£8m) why would they let him go for that price? And why should he sacrifice the chance of playing regularly to enable him to play in a WC? How many would he get to play in?

if he had grown a pair of balls or was'nt more worried about his england career than his club career he wouldnt be in the **** park he's in now.
he's a ****ing whale in a fishbowl,but he's there by his own design.

Why shouldn't he be worried about his internaional career? He's a professional. And with regard to "growing balls" there's no evidence that that would have any bearing on the outcome. RM could just have let him sit in the ressies in a WC season. And I fully understand why he didn't want to do that.

[The Glove]

Whether or not Benitez had the money doesn't change the situation Owen faced. Either way, holding out for a move back here was a massive risk for him.

Well it does since you say Benitez wouldnt match it forcing him to Newcastle. Maybe we wanted him but couldnt afford him therefore Owen wouldve known this and it would them be his choice to move to Newcastle, stay at Madrid or hold out for Madrid to sell at a lower price as its the move he wanted, like so many other players have done down the years.

[Kopite_Colin]

We still haven't got a top class goal-scorer.

We don't know that yet, mate. What we don't have is a PROVEN top class goalscorer in the Prem. We have a proven scorer in La liga (Torres) -but as yet unproven in the Prem, a Dutchman who scored a reasonable amount of league goals in his 1st Prem season (Kuyt), and a striker whose Prem scoring record isn't great (Crouch) and a guy completely unproven in England (Voronin). So I can understand where you're coming from, but I think the wide areas are more importnat to get right, at this time. Had we not got Voronin in, I would agree with you, and I think we'd be guaranteed more goals with Owen in the squad. But the we have plus Babel should be good enough if the wide areas are sorted properly.

[Hooz]

It was pretty well documented that Benitez wouldn't pay any more than the price he received a year earlier. But the situation for Owen was the same, holding out for a move back here was a risk, whether that was because we couldn't afford him or because Benitez wouldn't meet Madrid's valuation out of principle.

[Kopite_Colin]

It was pretty well documented that Benitez wouldn't pay any more than the price he received a year earlier. But the situation for Owen was the same, holding out for a move back here was a risk, whether that was because we couldn't afford him or because Benitez wouldn't meet Madrid's valuation out of principle.

It was simple maths.

Owen's value with 1 year left on a contract at24 yrs old = £8m + Nunez = 10

Owen's value 1 year later = aged 25, having been a success in Madrid (13 goals in 20 starts), 1 year intoi a 4 years deal = £16m. Not hard to see why is it? There was no way on this earth RM were going to sell him for £8m, and quite rightly. It wasn't anything to do with principles (Although publicallyw e would have looked bloody incompetent (for selling a player for 50-60% of his value that we wanted back 2 years later)

[Hooz]

We don't know that yet, mate. What we don't have is a PROVEN top class goalscorer in the Prem. We have a proven scorer in La liga (Torres) -but as yet unproven in the Prem, a Dutchman who scored a reasonable amount of league goals in his 1st Prem season (Kuyt), and a striker whose Prem scoring record isn't great (Crouch) and a guy completely unproven in England (Voronin). So I can understand where you're coming from, but I think the wide areas are more importnat to get right, at this time. Had we not got Voronin in, I would agree with you, and I think we'd be guaranteed more goals with Owen in the squad. But the we have plus Babel should be good enough if the wide areas are sorted properly.

Torres - 82 goals in 214 Appearances at Atletico Madrid
Kuyt - 12 goals in 34 Appearances at Liverpool
Crouch - 17 goals in 64 Appearances at Liverpool
Voronin - 32 goals in 92 Appearances at Bayer Leverkusen
Babel - 19 goals in 73 Appearances at Ajax

Not one of them is a natural goal-scorer.

Of them, Kuyt has probably the best record, 71 goals in 101 games at Feyenoord, but he misses far too many chances to ever be a top-class striker.