• Management team put the gloss on their man
• Brochure available in Spanish and Italian
Michael Owen is being promoted to potential buyers
via a 34-page brochure.
Details emerged last night of the content of the
brochure that Michael Owen's management team have sent to
Premier
League teams extolling the virtues of
their client, who is available on a free transfer. The brochure is
also available in Spanish and Italian. Here are some key parts of
the sales pitch.
• A medical review by John Green, Owen's personal physio, says:
"Michael approached me following tests at the West of England
University, we deduced that his hamstrings were weak. Consequently
Michael and I instigated an appropriate regime of strengthening
exercises to rectify the muscular imbalances that had been noted.
Four months later retests were performed and showed no deficits in
strength. Green says that Owen's reputation as an "injury-prone
player" is "nonsense".
• Michael Owen is a global football star. After David beckham he
is the best known English player in the world. Were it not for an
unhappy spell at Real Madrid and two injury-scarred years at
Newcastle, he would be spoken about in the same breath as Torres or
Ronaldo.
• False tabloid claim denied, one: Michael Owen is always
injured. Between January 2006 and August 2007 he was. But he
has appeared in 75% of Newcastle United's Premier League games, a
figure which matches Wayne Rooney, Roque Santa Cruz and Fernando
Torres and is higher that Didier Drogba, Robin van Persie and
Obafemi Martins.
• False tabloid claim denied, two: He has lost his
desire. Don't believe that for a moment. He is a ruthlessly
determined person who is desperate to be back in the England
squad.
• False tabloid claim denied, three: He travels to Newcastle
from his stables in Cheshire every day by helicopter.
Michael has never once flown from the stables to Newcastle. He does
have an investment in a helicopter company and one of the perks is
that in a week when he has a day off, he will use the helicopter to
fly to his other family home in Flintshire.