Back in harness: former England partners Michael Owen
and Wayne Rooney will both reap benefits
For everybody, this is a move that works. For Michael
Owen, for Sir Alex Ferguson, for Fabio Capello, for Wayne Rooney,
for Manchester United, for England. There is no loser here because
it is a gamble that the club can well afford.
If it comes off, there are dividends never previously imagined;
if it does not, all sides are merely back where they started.
The worst that can happen is that Manchester United do not win a
fourth title but, having lost Cristiano Ronaldo, the player that
provided the bulk of their goals, it could well have worked out
like that anyway. Certainly, Ferguson will see this acquisition as
one that gives him a greater chance, rather than the raising of the
flag of surrender.
It is a coup from left field that will surprise and disquiet in
equal measure. Face it, what defender would truly enjoy facing a
fit, firing Owen in a Manchester United shirt next season? If
Ferguson can restore him to former glories, there will be no finer
goalscorer in the Premier League.
There are benefits for all here because, despite his eagerness
to accept the challenge, Rooney was never going to fill the hole
left by Ronaldo's departure. Do the maths. Ronaldo scored 67 goals
in two seasons for United, Rooney scored 38, so to pick up the
slack he would not have to score another 29 because that total does
not include the goals he scored in the first place.
To compensate fully for Ronaldo's departure, Rooney would need
both totals, making 105 in two seasons, substantially above the
amount that elevated Ronaldo to the status of the most expensive
player in football history. It was never going to happen. Help was
required. And what a fit Owen represents is the cavalry coming over
the hill with a reinforcement of goals.
The sums will have been the worry for Ferguson. Losing Ronaldo
the player will have hurt, but it is when his goals were removed
from the equation that Ferguson would have realised United's
numbers no longer added up. And while a player such as Karim
Benzema has more potential than a 29-year-old with a recent history
of injury problems (and who no longer holds down a place in an
international squad that finds room for Carlton Cole), most foreign
players take a season to acclimatise to English football.
Ferguson has no time for that. He needs a man who will hit the
ground running, which Owen will, if fit. Even if he scores at the
rate of his previous two seasons with Newcastle United, which have
been dismissed as failures, he will be a vast improvement on the
departing favourite, Carlos Tevez.
Owen scored 23 goals in 62 games in a poor Newcastle team, at a
ratio of one every 2.69 games. Tevez scored 34 in 99 games in a
magnificent Manchester United team, a rate of 2.97. Last season,
his ratio was 3.4.
There are other, more troubling, statistics, of course, not
least Owen's record with Rooney at international level, which
suggests incompatibility. It is said that Owen requires an inferior
as a foil, doing the work so he can score the goals. And it is true
that the statistics suggest he fares better with Emile Heskey,
although the same can be said of Rooney, too.
It is a different Owen that United are signing, though. It is
not the player who must have assumed he was first on England's
teamsheet at his peak and that the rest had to work to feed
him.
This is a man whose pride has been hurt and who is being kept
out of the England squad by Darren Bent and Gabriel Agbonlahor. A
man who must, in World Cup year, demonstrate that he can be
effective with Rooney, now established as uppermost in Capello's
thoughts. He was never going to get that chance and now it has
fallen in his lap; right now, there should be no more willing team
player than Owen.
As for Capello, this is a big slice of luck . It has
been falsely presumed that he is not an admirer of Owen. This is
not the case.
He immediately identified his limitations as a player, and his
style did not fit naturally into England's team shape. Therefore,
he has been happy to try other options while Owen has been in
indifferent form for Newcastle. He does know, however, the worth of
a predatory goalscorer in a tournament.
Owen may still be an impact substitute rather than a starting
player but having tried out a series of strikers who are plainly
not world class, there is no doubt that, fit and scoring for a
major team, he would be very much back in Capello's thoughts. Also,
to forge a relationship with Rooney would take his worth to the
England manager to a new level.
So it makes sense all round that Owen should sign for Manchester
United. And it proves one more thing. That the daft brochure
hawking a great player like he was a new line at Boden's remains
one of the most misguided, chuckleheaded events in the field of
sports management.
The best advertisement for Owen was always the player, not the
image or the brand. He scores goals. Lots of goals. And a good
judge like Ferguson was never in need of a catalogue to remind
him.