Jul 03
Owen Signs, and he’s no Henrik Larsson
It’s official. The sun hasn’t run out of hydrogen yet, most humans continue to work for a living, but Michael Owen somehow finds himself a Manchester United player.
To be honest, I’ve never felt so underwhelmed by a United signing when I first heard it. I’ve been intrigued by some of Fergie’s buys but never so underwhelmed as I have been with this one. What shocks me is the PR on full tilt on the official site. Yes, we know it’s the official site etc, but to publish a headline that went ‘Reds fans excited over Owen signing’ made my stomach curdle.
I was extremely mad yesterday when this Owen signing gathered pace and didn’t even know how to react. Today I have better control over my emotions and I might be able to string a few sentences together. But first, the manager reaction:
“Michael is a world class forward with a proven goalscoring record at the highest level and that has never been in question. Coming to Manchester United with the expectations that we have is something that Michael will relish.”
Yes, Owen would definitely relish it. He should be thanking his stars for being given a chance to redeem himself.
A free transfer is something one can hardly argue against. But we’ve had our trysts with injury prone players in the past with Saha, and Hargreaves now. I just wonder how Owen’s thigh, knee, groin, ankle, nose, eye will hold up. Our record with keeping injury prone players fit hasn’t exactly been a paragon in sports science excellence.
While describing Owen, one must be wary about his usage of tense. He was a world class centre forward. He was clinical. He was pacy. He is still a prick to a lot of fellow reds.
But he’s a United player now. I will always view this signing with scepticism until I see something on the pitch that changes my opinion otherwise. I would love to be proved wrong on this and he actually ends up rediscovering some of his past form. But he has a two year contract with us, and would be less demanding of a place on the first team. He will hopefully get a pay as you play contract on top of a modest weekly wage, and that should suit me just fine.
My main worry is this shouldn’t be viewed as a sign of desperation. Ferguson clearly wants his signings before the pre season. And that’s reflected by his need to get things out of the way in a hurry upon his return from holiday; we were in on the Benzema deal quickly to be fair whether we got him or not.
The main question will be whether he will persist with trying to buy another striker (and if so, why sign Owen then?) Or will he go for a winger or midfielder? These are questions I’m sure Ferguson will have to address if he wants his starting XI and formations sorted out before the season.
So I’m sorry, Manutd.com, I don’t currently share the excitement you seem to have gleaned from your messageboards. I may get excited if Owen actually stays fit for a few months in a row. Till then, I’ll wait to see if we have any more signings lined up.
Related items from Red Rants:
- Carlos Tevez continues to spout venom
- Ferguson’s comments on transfers, and he’s not stupid
- Man Utd Stories of the Day
- What is your formation?
- Will United Meet Great Expectations?
Tags: Manchester United News
Opti (541)
Stephen (479)
RedDevilEddy (459)
Craig Mc (345)
Moscow is my heaven (272)
@Craig Mc: We need a non-Englishman to take our penalties.
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@Craig Mc: I remember Rooney taking a pretty good one on his debut! Does Valencia take them? Nani? I think Carrick would be pretty good at them, what with his accuracy and all. He could pretty much pass them into the top corners. Rooney will take the penalties I’d imagine.
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Craig well the glazers deserved that no doubt about it
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@Red Ranter: Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah that’s a bit below the belt, even for you Red Ranter
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@steve:
, You have not taken up Boxing by any chance have you, as you especially like slugging it out against our players, Manager, coaching staff, Glazers, David Gill, etc etc etc 
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@Red Ranter: Maybe Anderson, his penalties are class!
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Gabriel, good analysis. Carrick fitted perfectly into our system when the team was built around Ronaldo. But now he needs to develop his attacking instincts because we need someone to score goals and link midfield and attack because we will no longer be such a counter attacking team. If he cannot do that then he will need to be replaced or relegated to a substitute role. Fergie needs to be ruthless because Ronaldo’s goals will no longer be able to cover up an unproductive midfield.
I think a defensive midfielder should be our priority. Hargreaves will not be back until next season at the earliest if at all. Get a defensive midfielder to alternate with Fletcher, then take the shackles off Anderson and Carrick and tell them to contribute to our attack. If they cannot do the job, ship them out next season and buy someone who can.
Same thing applies with Nani. He has one more season to show what he can do. If he doesn’t improve dramatically we can ship him out as well.
Last season Fergie played it safe and gave all the games to players like Giggs, Scholes, Park and co. This season it is time to give youth a chance and if they do not take their chance then hopefully next season there will be some quality midfielders available to sign.
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@Craig Mc: What you mean Giggs is useless at dead balls? Giggs was the original Beckham until Beckham came and hogged the set-pieces and the limelight. Giggsy is a great exponent of the dead-ball, contrary to what you say. You could even say Ronaldo was useless at dead balls then cos 90% of his free-kicks hit the wall and he missed some crucial penalties for us.
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@Karl: Ando’s pretty good at penalties…hasn’t missed one for us so far. Shame he’s not so prolific from open play though! Hopefully now with Ronaldo gone he can take them for us and get off the mark finally!
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@Traverse: Something tells me Rooney won’t Trav! But yes I remember Rooney’s superhuman debut, what a night, the stands were rocking at OT
. Wouldn’t it be something if Michael Owen felt the need to PROVE his credentials, with a hat trick debut – I think we would all have to suck it up then wouldn’t we? 
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Personally, I feel a bit awkward about this Owen deal. Im a little dissapointed because he is “old”, has lost some of his pace and is injured 10 out of 12 months a year, but on the other hand he is an awsome finisher who can nurture Welbeck and Kiko as well as scorng a couple of important goals for us. And he will upset the dippers, and in the way he does it it is priceless!
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@Craig Mc: Nah, I threw my crystal ball away after it mislead me about Ronnie
Mate, it’s just my instinct, plus it is logical too. 
I personally feel Welbeck will feature heavily in ManUtd’s future and this signing will aid, rather than hamper his development. Benzema was Fergie’s pipe dream, now he’s gone to the facists, who funnily enough say they got him only because they couldn’t get Villa and were on a time deadline!! Talk about player appreciation !! 
Fergie has just snapped back to reality and is being pragmatic, like any 67-yr old sage should be.
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@Nino: Errrr yes you need to put emphasis on the word WAS! I have watched Giggsy taking free kicks in Ronnie’s absence and he IMHO is shite mate – sorry!
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Break the bank for Essien?? I would gladly pay £50m for him as he is the ultimate modern box2box midfielder. The May 2009 Barca debacle would never happen again with him in our midfield with Carrick pulling the strings and Hargreaves shielding the back 4.
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@Gabriel: Yeah I notice that word logic is being used in bundles on this topic of Michael Owen at the moment
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@Craig Mc: I wonder why Craig…perhaps it could have been something to do with first Becks, then Ronaldo hogging all the dead ball duties throughout his career with us. Use it or lose it as they say, and seeing as Giggsy was never given regular chances to use his dead ball talents, he’s gone and lost most of it as you say lol
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What about De Rossi, the best midfielder in Italy? Roma are in financial difficulties. Could we not prise him away for midfield?
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@Red Ranter: What would be ideal is if we signed a German, ANY German, just to take our penalties! No German national team player has missed a penalty in a shootout since the early 1980′s I think (Grognard can correct me on this).
How about purchasing Neuer the U21 goalkeeper this summer? He’d be a replacement for VDS AND a penalty taker too! Kill two birds with one stone!
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@RedAddict: Real Madrid have just gone in for De Rossi mate, because L’pool are messing them about regarding Alonso.
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@Nino: We already have a German keeper, Ron Robert Zieler. He can take our penalties.
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I cant get the song ‘Summertime blues’ out of my mind. Have we all just grown weary of the seemingly ridiculous decision making at OT re transfers/transfer strategy, that we have become like a crowd totally laid back on Cannabis?
Oh those Summertime blues 
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Why can’t Rooney or Owen(God that sounds weird) take them? Hargreaves should be fit and he’s GERMAN, so thats another option, plus Nani has a good shot him so he could work. Carrick is not a bad option either.
For free-kics: Hargreaves, Gigss or maybe even Tosic(if he’s gonna be a regular).
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@Craig Mc: You are joking Craig. Have you got a link to this story? This is like one really bad case of deja vu. I really hope they get Alonso.
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@RedAddict: Rooney has never struck me as a confident penalty taker. Owen is a good idea, provided he’s on the pitch.
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@RedAddict: No I’m not joking Redaddict. I saw the reports on several Spanish sites, that they have grown weary with L’pools stalling, and have turned to Roma and De Rossi! L’pool have said they are willing to talk now, but Real M apparently feel it may be too late.
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@Rd: We already have some fantastic penalty takers at this club…Hargo as you mentioned, Ando as I mentioned earlier, Berbatov is usually ice cool from the spot (the Everton FA Cup mishit was a one-off that went wrong)…Giggs and Scholes are experienced dead ball exponents as well.
Carrick is a great penalty taker too…hasn’t missed one for us so far and I remember him taking one in a preseason friendly last year against Aberdeen I think, and he just looked like he was calmly threading a through ball between two imaginary defenders into the bottom corner.
I also agree with RR that Rooney has never struck me either as a natural penalty-taker/dead ball specialist. Neither has Owen throughout his career. I wouldn’t let Park near a penalty either.
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Course it could all just be Real M tactics to get a L’pool response, dirty tricks nothing unusual from Real M. Or it may just be spanish media speculation.
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@Craig Mc: I don’t get that.A player’s injuries are all in his head?How?The pain is definitely in the head.I’m sure there is a part of the brain that notifies you that something is wrong,through physical pain.But injuries in the head?
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I’m gonna take a punt with Wesley Sneijder as our main dead ball specialist!!
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@ Jay wire – It’s a mental barrier thing…when you keep on getting injured it will eventually psych you out and you think you are constantly injured or going to injure yourself even when you are not. I think Craig is referring to the psychological problems that Louis had when he was with us. It’s kind of hard to explain lol
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@Craig Mc: Well that’s put a dampener on my dream signing. I really think De Rossi would be perfect for us in the centre of the park. Not a like-for-like replacement for Scholes obviously, but a classier version of Keane. That would do nicely beside either Carrick or Fletcher for midfield.
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@RedAddict: That would have been a good player to get, your right. I don’t think De Rossi would come to England though to be honest!
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@phoenix red: We have to get him first mate. But agreed though if we did get him i would have no trouble putting him in as our dead ball specialist. Some of his free kicks if anybody hasnt seen them are bloody brilliant, he hits them very similar to the way hargreaves does actually. I dont know about you guys but whilst ronaldos FKs were pretty sensational the way they went in and were unique the way he would strike the ball i just think a simple placement of the ball the way beckham used to works much better.
Im not sure he has taken much penalties but his free kicks and corners are top notch so i have little doubt he could do a decent job at taking the pens. First things first though we need to sign the guy, im praying we do though cos this guy would be magic for us. Him and another goal keeper and i think the squads looking pretty good.
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@phoenix red: The only Real Madrid players I’m interested in signing are one of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Benzema! Seriously though, I think we can do without the likes of Sneijder and Van der Vaart….wouldn’t mind Huntelaar or Higuain though at a knockdown price of £12-15m, though what I really want us to sign is a pacy striker with real class like Aguero, even if he is Argie and our last two fucked us over big time. That’s not to say all of em are like that though!
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This is an excellent bit of business. He’s a proven striker and if we can get bits and peices of his old magic that would be a boon. We won’t be counting on him to be the main attacking option like Newcastle did.
Of course there’s a good chance he will be a spectacular failure at United. But there’s also a smaller chance that he will be the ideal pairing with Berbatov. What could be better to go with an over-sized set up man than an undersized finisher? This would move Rooney to Ron’s old roll as a Striker who operates from the right side of midfield, with Valencia feeding the ball in to those three.
It’s a gamble, but a very smart gamble because Fergie didn’t have to pay for the raffle ticket. He’s a free transfer and on a pay-as-you-play contract so any goal he gets is a goal we didn’t have to pay a dime from the Ronaldo transfer for. This gives us the freedom to use the whole 80 million quid (I don’t count valencia against this because i think we would have signed him anyway) on our own terms. We could even wait til the winter where better bargains are sure to be had because summer of 09 is definately not a buyer’s market.
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In other words Owen for free is a much better value than Tevez at 32 mil, so count me as at least whelmed.
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@Rd: Who is German?
@Nino: Scholes is not a very good penalty kick taker.
I think our penalties will be taken by Rooney and Berbatov,with the former being the preffered.Hargreaves can’t be relied on because of his availability.Berbatov will play less games than the Roon.I would have had him as my 1st choice because he’s as cool as ice.
On the Owen issue I’m not very very excited.But I still have faith that he will become a very important figure @ OT.He is clinical and has good technical ability contrary to what others may believe.If he stays fit for the larger part of the season I have no doubt that he’ll deliver goals in most games he plays.He may even prove to be better than Larsson another injury prone player.My main concern however is everyone’s concern right now.Can he survive at least half the season without injury.If indeed he can then I have zero doubt that he’ll be a success.The boy knows how to guide a football to the back of the net.This could prove to be SAF’s biggest masterstroke in recent years.I’m also not sure why everyone is angry at the club for “looking desperate”.That’s how life is.We’re the ones who always complain that the club signs players late.Clearly we’ve been trying to get the best players so far but they seem to prefer spending the careers on the Madrid subs’ couch.Nothing anyone can do about that.So Now that the club acts swiftly and takes a risk in order to have at least most of the new players in before the tour,we curse and moan.Others still call the now United player names.How silly can it get?
And tbh I think this is exactly what we need.Owen can’t complain much about shining the bench,and is obviously willing to be a permanent sub player.Kiko and Wellbeck are on the brink of regular 1st team football and most of us have high hopes for them.A signing like Owen’s will not seriously hinder them from actually breaking into the team.Imagine a Luis fabiano or David Villa or a Berbatov content with being on the bench.Not gonna happen.In any case,the manager may not be finished yet with his tranfer activity and can’t be blamed for anything concerning this year’s transfers.
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@millz: I disagree about the winter being a better market than the summer because a lot of managers panic buy during mid-season and pay an extra million or two than they should for players. Furthermore, a lot of players will be cup-tied for various competitions like the UEFA Champion’s League and FA Cup, having already played for one team in the first half of the season.
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@steve: yea that scum that bought us 3 in a row you cant please some people
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@Jay wire: I seriously think we are going to get everything done in the next 2 weeks. Fergie will NEED to have everyone together for pre-season to build a new team and gel the new players. Adapt for the new style of play.
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@steve: I hated the Glazers as much as anyone when they came in but there is no denying our transfer activity hasn’t been hampered, and they pretty much do fuck all but sign the cheques. If their actions start affecting our ability to compete then the gloves are off, but until then we really could have done much worse (see Liverpool, Newcastle, Arsenal)
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This has got to be the most elaborate prank anybody has ever played. Michael Owen?!? Is this what we’ve been reduced to? Good grief.
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@ Matt, totally agree bro, Wesley is class and offers much more than just free kicks. Big problems still for me in midfield, Carrick needs to greatly improve his command of midfield, he’s just not decisive and lethal enough for me. I had major doubts when he was signed which have mellowed, but now Ronaldo is gone, does Michael Carrick have what it takes to make a meaningful goal contribution? I know he’s probably been hampered without a constant partner and differing tasks. But i wonder could he do with a bit of real competition for his place. I agree with other posters with the mediocrity of some of our midfield players, this is why i think we need 2 world class centre mids. Ideally one will be Owen Hargreaves, we all hope this will be the case. I dont think Anderson is an answer, he’s got alot to learn yet! Sorry Eddy! What about Fletcher? Great cover and should be used in a rotation system, but lacks that killer edge. Sometimes when Carrick and Fletcher play together they seem to get their prospective roles mixed up, and i dont know which one frustrates me most?! So Sneijder and an “Essian” type player is what we need to improve our midfield.
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Imagine owen getting a league’s medal, how would liverpool fan feel? i lol forever.
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@Karl: hells yea mate that will have their faces reder than ther shirts
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@ROOOOONEY: hahaha i love this signing just to see the scouse cry
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ya gator i love it too, but seriously if he doesnt do well at all, we will get eaten by the media, and the manager by the fans. and of course the scouse section will have a laugh but only at themselves when they fail to win the title again.
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here are top 10 ferguson gamble signings
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/manutd/5732502/Sir-Alex-Fergusons-gamble-on-Michael-Owen-could-hit-the-jackpot.html
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Since we are rebuilding, after a good run of three years. Anyone thought of Downing? Where is he going?
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The English and Spanish media are on overdrive right now. A bunch of bleeping psychos. I have read that United are going after David Villa, Klaas Jan Huntelaar, Edin Dzeko, Fabiano, Sergio Aguero, Alexandre Pato, Arda Turan and in a worst case scenario just in case all of you out there have not overdosed completely on languid and lazy with Berbatov, now I am reading the name Zlatan Ibrahimovich. I mean how frakken ridiculous and absurd can the media be when it comes to reporting on football? There should be international laws against this kind of garbage.
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