'I never thought I would start every game when I joined the
club. Honestly, I've loved it here,' says Michael Owen of
Manchester United. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA
The tone was set on the opening night of the season. The first
game is always a special day for football people. But when Sir Alex
Ferguson announced his team, for one person in the Manchester
United dressing room, there was nothing but crushing
disappointment. Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov were in from the
start; fair enough. Javier Hernández, the new signing, and Federico
Macheda were among the substitutes, but there was no room for
Michael Owen –
no place in the 18 for the man once regarded as the most
devastating finisher in the sport.
He has grown wearily accustomed to watching football in a club
suit, but it never gets easier. In total, he has made only six
starts for Manchester United in the Premier League, and 14 in
total, since moving from Newcastle
United 16 months ago. They are the kind of statistics to
prompt legitimate questions of whether this is a man being shunted
to the edges. But Owen insists he is settled, that he wants to stay
and will get more job satisfaction from the odd game at Old
Trafford than he would, say, from playing regularly for a club in
the bottom half of the league.
Two months away from turning 31, he is also acutely aware that
leaving United would mean his career heading one way: down. Owen
had a miserable time at Newcastle. He will always be grateful to
Sir Alex Ferguson for offering him another chance to win a league
winners' medal when the rest of English football had virtually
turned its back on him, and there is only one moment when he
expresses anything remotely approaching dissatisfaction with his
current employer.
It is when he is asked why Ferguson has been so reluctant to
partner him with Rooney when it once worked so well for England.
His body language changes immediately: guarded, wary, looking for
the right words. He knows the answer, he says, because the manager
has explained it to him, but he does not feel like he should talk
about it. Later, he adds to the intrigue by saying it is not a
tactical decision, though he will not be pushed further.
Ferguson's preference is for Rooney to partner Berbatov, though
Hernández's blistering form is threatening the order, while he is
unwavering in his belief that the 19-year-old Federico Macheda will
eventually be a hero of Old Trafford. Owen now seems to be fifth in
line, regardless of all those goals from a glorious past.
The injuries, by his own admission, have taken their toll. "They
had taken something away by the time I was 21, to be honest. At 18
to 20, I was probably one of the quickest things around, at the
peak of my powers. But what can you do? I can play different ways
now. I can link play better now, I can do things I couldn't do when
I was younger. And you never lose the instinct of being a
goalscorer, of knowing where the ball is going to drop. It can just
take a bit longer to get into that position now."
In January he would be six months from the end of his contract
and free to speak to other clubs. "It's a question for the manager
really, but if you ask my opinion I would love to stay. I never
thought I would start every game when I joined the club and I have
never complained about anything.
"Honestly, I've loved it here. I signed a two-year contract, I'm
only 60% into that and hopefully we will talk [about extending it]
before the end of the season."
Gérard Houllier, his former manager at Liverpool, is said to be
keen to take him to Aston Villa. Liverpool, too, have been linked
with their former player. There would be no shortage of potential
suitors but Owen feels Old Trafford is the sort of place where he
belongs.
"I won't drop down the leagues and whether I would even want to
drop down to a poorer Premier League team … I don't know. Yes, I
could score goals, but I would probably get less opportunities and
less enjoyment.
"I think I'd rather play less and train with top players, rather
than playing every minute of every game, getting three or four
touches and not enjoying it."
There have been difficult moments with United, though. The time,
for example, when he scored a hat-trick at
Wolsfburg in the Champions League but was dropped for
the next match.
"But I'm 30, I have been around and I understand how it works. I
am not going to kid myself because I know that if I were fit and
scored a hat-trick in the next two or three games, Wayne would
still come back into the team when he is fit again. I know I am not
as good as him. Maybe 10 years ago you could argue I was – but not
now.
"This season, too, I scored two against Scunthorpe [in the
Carling Cup]. The next game I was on the bench but came on and
scored and then the next game we played, at Valencia, we used three
strikers [even with Rooney left at home] and I was an unused
sub."
Owen comes armed with his own statistic, one that says he has
scored in every 111 minutes he has been on the pitch. Hernández is
the only other striker at Old Trafford with a more prolific
record.
"He's a goalscorer; you can see it in his eyes," Owen, an
ambassador for BT Chat for Children, says of the Mexican. "It's
hard to explain this without fear of it being taken the wrong way,
but it's still early days, and who knows what will happen? But he's
got something. He knows how to score goals, he knows how to get in
the positions."
Does he remind him of anyone? "Myself, probably."
Previous interviews with Owen would always lead in the direction
of talking about England and whether he felt he could get back into
Fabio Capello's plans. "It is probably a reflection on Owen's lack
of minutes at United that his status as an international footballer
is prefixed by the word "former" these days, even though he is
nearly three years younger than England's latest cap, Kevin
Davies.
This interview finishes on a subject that makes him wince far
more than talk of his game-time: his hamstring. On Friday, in the
last minute of training, Owen attempted a back-heel to John O'Shea
and felt a sharp, familiar pain. He will be out for
four weeks, potentially missing seven games. "I just
want to get fit again and playing and I'm sure I can score goals at
this level for a long time."
