Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is on a mission to
"solve the problem" of Michael Owen's lack of match action.
Owen joined the Old Trafford outfit in a blaze of publicity
during the summer.
It was anticipated Ferguson's surprise capture would use his
lifeline to catapult himself into the England World Cup squad for
South Africa.
Instead, Owen has struggled to make any impact.
Even his hat-trick against Wolfsburg last month failed to get
Owen a regular starting berth.
Only once since then has he started a game, and that was the
disastrous defeat at Fulham.
He has remained on the bench for United's last three games and
on Saturday was overlooked in favour of new recruit Mame Biram
Diouf as Ferguson searched for a winner at Birmingham.
Even Ferguson accepts the situation is less than ideal.
But with doubts lingering over Dimitar Berbatov, who is putting
off having exploratory surgery on a knee injury that might
eventually require an operation, Ferguson needs to find a way of
getting Owen to make a meaningful contribution.
"Michael needs games and we are going to try and solve the
problem," said Ferguson.
"It is just about the blend with your strikers.
"Sometimes, with the strength I have got in midfield, it suits
us to play with one striker and we like to see Wayne Rooney through
the middle.
"Everyone knows Michael is a last-defender player. There is
no-one better at that because his movement and positional sense in
the last third of the field is excellent.
"But it is a difficult choice to play two directly through the
middle in the modern day game."
It does appear difficult to know how Ferguson can get Owen into
his team if he cannot play with Rooney.
Yet the United boss denies the fourth-highest scorer in England
international history is being squeezed out. And he offered a
straightforward explanation for Diouf's elevation at
Birmingham.
"I have to nominate 25 players for the Champions League at the
end of January and I have to find out about Diouf's qualities," he
said.
"He has done very well in training but it was an opportunity at
that point of the game to see how, temperament wise, he could fit
into it.
"Unfortunately, he was only on a couple of minutes when Darren
Fletcher was sent off.
"But Michael is not out of the equation at all. He will come
into it."
In laughing off any suggestion that Rooney could be sold
following suggestions contract talks are not going as well as
hoped, Ferguson also admitted he is expecting a greater goalscoring
contribution from Berbatov.
So far, the £30.75million Bulgarian has found the net just six
times this season, a major let-down for a player of such
talent.
"Dimitar is a good goalscorer," said Ferguson.
"Yes, he can make goals but I am sure it is the area he wants to
do better himself.
"If we get to the end of the season and he has got 15 or above
we would be very happy with that. That should be a target for
him."
For that to happen, Berbatov would need to reach the end of the
campaign without succumbing to the knee operation he is presently
resisting.
Ferguson admitted there may come a point when United have to
"make a decision" about whether to put Berbatov under the knife
should symptoms persist.
However, as it has previously been suggested that could rule him
out for three months, Ferguson is desperately hoping to avoid that
scenario.
"If we could see it through until the end of the season it would
be better," said the Red Devils chief.
"The advice was to have an exploratory operation but Dimitar
wants to play through it.
"Sometimes he feels it and sometimes he doesn't. Maybe the
climate helped but he didn't feel it when we went away, so he
trained every day.
"It is a difficult one and if he is feeling OK it is not a
problem.
"But if he is keeps continually coming up against a problem we
would have to make a decision on it."
