In an announcement today that has surprised many people in football Michael Owen has revealed that he is still currently playing, apparently for Stoke City, but he will retire at the end of the season.
Owen came through our youth system and made an immediate impact in the first team, something he followed up on the international stage with England and it didn’t take him long to become a big name across Europe. When he was fully fit his pace was frightening and that was matched by his ability, I’ve lost count of the number of matches I went to at Anfield that were pretty dull affairs, usually livened up only by one or two bits of magic from our number 10 that secured us the three points.
Since the early 1980’s Liverpool have consistently had a feared striker, even in the Premier League era when we haven’t been challenging as high up the table as we’d want to be we’ve still managed to keep at least one top class forward in our squad. Rush, Aldridge, Rush (again), Fowler, Owen, Torres, Suarez. Those six players and what they’ve done for us on the pitch are massively responsible for Liverpool still being the big name in world football that we are, and, while the league title has eluded us for many years, have contributed to the steady flow of other trophies that have continued to land in the Anfield trophy cabinet.
Four years ago Michael Owen did the unthinkable for a former Liverpool player and signed for Man Utd. Given the options open to him at the time I don’t really blame him for joining them, though signing on for a third season when he knew he was a bit part player smacked of a man well aware his career was almost over.
When Owen first returned to Anfield as an opposition player it was in the black and white of Newcastle, and he was subjected to chants from the home supporters, including myself, that day. I’m not of the opinion that anything directed at Owen that day was over the top or abusive, it was banter, albeit sung with a bit of anger. ‘You should’ve signed for a big club’ was a reference to him signing for the Geordies rather than holding out for a move back to Liverpool, nothing particularly bad and more offensive to Newcastle than to the player, surely. ‘Where were you in Istanbul?’ was, for me, an excuse to sing about winning the European cup in Turkey months before. When Rafa Benitez took over in the summer of 2004 Owen had a year left on his contract and had a choice, sign up again and give the new manager a chance, or move on. He chose to move on, saying it was in search of trophies, and twelve months later the biggest trophy of them all was back at Anfield and Owen was surplus to requirements at Real Madrid. With hindsight he made the wrong choice, but it was his decision and he’s had to live with it. Singing to him about Istanbul wasn’t nasty, it was a reminder that we are Liverpool and this is what he chose to leave behind.
In many ways it’s sad that a player who brought success to Liverpool is now more remembered for his failures at other clubs than for all the good performances he put in during his time with us. He brought positive exposure to Liverpool, he won the European Footballer Of The Year award, and he helped us win trophies. In 2001 we won all three knockout competitions we entered, Owen’s two late goals won us the FA Cup against Arsenal, and the UEFA Cup win wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t scored two away in Rome on the run to the final. A couple of years later he was a scorer in the League Cup final as we defeated Man Utd in the final in Cardiff. He scored several goals in victories against Everton and Man Utd, not to mention against pretty much everyone he faced in a Liverpool shirt.
If somebody had said ten years ago that Michael Owen and Jamie Carragher would retire at the same time, one as a half forgotten bit part player who had moved around clubs and one as a Liverpool legend I’m not sure too many people would have guessed which man would be which. Owen certainly won’t receive the plaudits on his retirement that Carra will (and already has done) but he definitely made a big contribution to Liverpool Football Club during his time there. If Owen had stayed at Real Madrid for the remainder of his career I’m sure he would have been thought of more fondly by the Liverpool supporters, but a series of poor career choices have made his decision to leave us look like it was the wrong one. Michael Owen, a player with huge ability, great potential and a good reminder that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
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