Michael Owen - Nobody's Hero

Detached. Unmoved. Not too bothered. Those are the overriding feelings for me this morning. Having tuned in to Sky Sports News to see the breaking story that Michael Owen had announced his retirement, it may seem strange that such news does not elicit a more emotive response from me. After all, this is a player that I, like millions around the world, once idolised and loved. Perhaps it was always destined to be this way, though.

The first half of Owen’s career could scarcely have been better. A national hero at 18, the first English winner of the Ballon d’Or since Kevin Keegan, goal after goal after goal and universal acclaim for a young man who won trophies left, right and centre at Liverpool. He was destined to break all of Liverpool and England’s goal scoring records. He could have been a legend. He should have been a legend.

Unfortunately, a toxic combination of injuries and some horrible career choices meant that Owen’s star faded as steadily and dramatically as his once electric pace. Sure, there were the occasional high spots in those later years. A goal in el classico for Real Madrid here, a last minute winner in a Manchester derby there. Good moments, sure, but they were few and far between.

On reflection, perhaps Owen, a man who always put his career first and made cold, calculated decisions throughout his playing days, would have done things a bit differently.

While some Liverpool fans may never forgive Owen’s consistently delayed contract talks and subsequent cut price defection to Real Madrid in the summer of 2004, it seems churlish to criticise a genuine world class striker at the time for moving to the Bernabeu. Liverpool would lift the European Cup a season later while he spent most of his time watching Raul and Ronaldo from the sidelines but, on reflection, Owen’s move to Madrid was bold and refreshing. Here was an English player taking a risk and joining the most celebrated club in the world because he believed he was good enough to play regularly for them. In theory, he was. His goals to minutes record for Real was exceptional. In reality, he was unlikely to ever displace crowd favourite Raul or Brazilian superstar Ronaldo. Owen may not have been a roaring success in Spain, but he certainly didn't fail. He scored goals a plenty and his stock remained high when he decided to leave Madrid a year later.

Owen signs in at Real Madrid in 2004

A return to Anfield looked certain. Liverpool, newly crowned European Champions, had lacked a top level centre forward since Owen’s departure and Rafa Benitez was keen to bring the player back ‘home’.  All summer long, Liverpool and Madrid embarked upon a tedious game of brinksmanship, haggling over the price for England’s best striker. The Kop waited with baited breath for the return of one their icons. Then, along came Newcastle. Ah, Newcastle. Where it all started to go wrong. The Geordies recognised Owen’s desperation for a move away from Spain and Liverpool’s refusal to pay over the odds for a player they had lost for a relative pittance just 12 months earlier and so they swept in and made Madrid and Owen an offer that couldn't be refused.

While Madrid would pocket a healthy profit on a player they didn't really need, the reason the offer couldn't be refused from Owen’s point of view probably had little to do with financial incentives. It certainly wasn't a decision taken with the belief that Newcastle could match his ambition for trophies either. So why did Owen, a player with the opportunity to move from the world’s biggest club to the reigning European champions settle for a transfer to Tyneside to go and play for a mid table side while he was still in his prime? The answer is simple. His decision was taken because the most important team in his life was never Liverpool, Real Madrid, Newcastle or Manchester United. It was England.

A World Cup was on the horizon and if Liverpool and Real Madrid had failed to break their deadlock in negotiations, Owen would have been left in limbo on the Bernabeu bench. Another season with limited game time could have had a detrimental effect on his England chances. So Owen bit the bullet. He moved to a club below his level at the time to save his international career. He didn't have the stones to call Madrid’s bluff and force them to make a deal with Liverpool, so he ended up wearing black and white. 

And this is where the Michael Owen story turned sour. In Owen’s mind, Newcastle was supposed to be a pit stop, a short term solution. He’d stay there for a year, bang the goals in as he always had, ride into the 2006 World Cup with England and then a bigger club would come along and offer him the opportunity to win trophies again. What actually happened was that Owen spent four miserable years in the north east. His first 2 seasons in black and white yielded just 14 league appearances as a metatarsal injury kept him out for months in his first year. Fortunately for him, he recovered just in time to travel with England to the World Cup in Germany. In a way, his main goal had still been achieved, despite the injury. He was on the plane to lead England’s front line on the grandest stage of them all.

Newcastle: The End

Fate again though, dealt him a cruel blow. In England’s group match with Sweden at that World Cup, Owen damaged his anterior cruciate ligament and his tournament was over. Effectively, so were his days as a world class footballer. The gamble had failed and he was no longer a huge draw for top sides but a crocked forward who would make just 3 appearances in 2006-07 for Newcastle.

His career obviously continued, and will do so right up until the end of this current season, but save for a few fleeting moments of joy, it has mainly been a tale of injuries and substitute appearances. The goals never fully dried up, finishing ability is always the last thing to leave a forward of Owen’s quality, but the pace and desire had obviously ebbed away. He may have picked up a Premier League title with Manchester United but his role was peripheral in that success and not befitting of a player who once had the world at his feet.

Perhaps the saddest thing about Owen’s career is that he is not really loved or appreciated for those early years any more. When he returns to Anfield he is serenaded with taunts about how he ‘should have stayed at a big club’. He should be a hero there at least, but his misguided decision in the summer of 2005 to shun the club that had helped make him, has cost him that. The move to Manchester United didn't help matters on that front either. He was never an idol at Newcastle or Madrid and at Old Trafford he remains little more than a footnote, while he has spent more time on the Match of the Day 2 couch than on the pitch for Stoke.

Owen in his halcyon days for Liverpool

Owen’s achievements in the game mean that he will, rightly, always command respect. He made choices in his career with a degree of detachment from the emotion of the game because he thought he knew what was best for him and his career. That is no bad thing in isolation, but it means that, as the clock slowly ticks down on his playing days, he won’t evoke passions in supporters’ hearts the way that other players of the past did. He is no Robbie Fowler in Liverpool, nor Raul on the streets of Madrid. He is no Shearer to the Geordies nor Cantona to the Stretford End. He’s just Michael Owen, a once great striker whose career fizzled out before it should have. Shame.   

Suso must avoid Pacheco perils

Jesus Joaquin Fernandez Saez de la Torre is not the first precocious Spanish playmaker Liverpool have had in their ranks over the past few years, but the player himself and the club must together make sure that he is the first to succeed in the first team.

Daniel Pacheco’s Liverpool career appears to be all over bar the shouting but there was a time not so long ago when he was earmarked by supporters as a certainty to graduate from youth star to first team regular. Unfortunately, it never quite worked out that way. For all the wonderful technique that Pacheco displayed in the reserve and youth sides, the Spaniard could never quite make the ultimate break through and become a big player for Liverpool. Similar in style, stature and even in terms of natural ability to Suso, Pacheco’s failure should serve as a stark reminder to his fellow countryman and the club of just how difficult the bridge to becoming a first team regular can be to cross.

While Suso he has generally performed adequately when called upon this season, at times the hurly burly nature of the Premier League has understandably looked a little too much for him and his play has lacked an end product. After featuring heavily in the first half of the season for the Reds, the youngster has found his opportunities limited of late.

Suso must continue his progression 

Liverpool must be careful now not to let their talented young star stagnate. Suso must be allowed to continue his adaptation to Premier League life as soon as possible and in a way that Pacheco never really managed to do. Since making his first team bow for the reds back in 2009, Pacheco has played on loan for three different clubs. Perhaps crucially, none of them were Premier League clubs. His first move was down to East Anglia to play in the Championship for Norwich where he only featured six times. His next move saw him go back to him homeland to play for Rayo Vallecano but Pacheco managed just 11 appearances and no goals. 

After just three appearances this term under Brendan Rodgers back at Liverpool, he moved again this January to join SD Heusca for the remainder of the season and currently has 1 goal in 6 games. The lack of top level experience and Premier League appearances has probably counted against Pacheco and is an obvious reason for why he has struggled to adapt to life in England’s top league. It also shows how important next season is for his friend Suso. Players can only get used to life in England’s top division by playing games and while Suso has played his fair share for Liverpool early on in the season, it appears that those options will now be limited at Anfield.

Aged 19, Suso is now on the fringes of the Liverpool senior side but still someway away from displacing players like Sturridge, Suarez or Coutinho in the first eleven. Recently he has featured for the clubs under 21 side and, to his credit, looked a cut above that level. Too good for the second string but not quite ready for the first team. Many Liverpool players have been in that position over the years (Indeed, the likes of Jonjo Shelvey and Raheem Sterling are also in that boat right now) but not gone on to the greater things expected of them at the club.  Suso’s current position in the squad seems to leave both club and player with a relatively obvious solution for next season: A loan move to a Premier League club.

Pacheco and Suso are unlikely to be team mates next season

Brendan Rodgers has had to use the likes of Suso and Sterling more than he would have liked this season due to the thin nature of his squad but, with Sturridge and Coutinho now added to the ranks and the summer transfer window fast approaching, one suspects that loan moves for the clubs outstanding youngsters will be considered.

What is of paramount importance is that over the next year, Suso gets regular game time to hone his craft and assimilate to the rigours of the Premier League further. The first half of this season has set some solid foundations in place for the youngster and he is now regarded as part of the first team squad at Anfield rather than a youth player with an exceptional talent. It is imperative that his career does not now stutter and ultimately falter during this crucial stage of his development.

So while Liverpool supporters are understandably excited by Suso’s talent, perhaps it would be wise to keep in mind the last Spanish starlet who illuminated Liverpool’s youth and reserve sides before ultimately fading to black.

Player of the Year...It's obvious

Never mind the eventual outcome, the Premier League’s player of the year is crystal clear. Right now it is a three way battle rather than the formality that it should be. Despite Gareth Bale’s red hot form over the past two months making him the favourite for the award and Robin van Persie’s continued brilliance in front of goal for Manchester United, the best player in the Premier League this year is obvious and a trophy is not needed to confirm what people surely already know but aren’t ready to acknowledge.

The award should of course always be given to the best player over the entire season and whichever way you dress it up, one man alone has been consistently producing performances worthy of such an accolade above all others. The problem and doubt occurs because these awards don’t always go to the players most deserving of them. There are always ulterior motives. Ryan Giggs was voted player of the year in 2009 despite starting only 12 games and scoring once for Manchester United. Sure, it was a fitting gesture for a man whose career even back then was defying the boundaries of age, but taking the award at face value, Giggs’ win was little more than a farce. He was awarded the trophy based on sentimentality and as recognition for his longevity and professionalism, not because he was the best player in the Premier League.  

The reason that this season’s outstanding player, Luis Suarez, is a distant third in the running for this year’s award right now has nothing to do with his performances on the pitch. It is down to his public persona. Suarez won’t win player of the year because people generally don’t like him. Sure, van Persie has been phenomenal for United and after a very good first 6 months of the season Bale has finally gone into overdrive down at White Hart Lane, but neither have been as consistently enthralling or important as regularly as the Uruguayan this term. Suarez leads the goal scoring charts but that isn’t the half of it.

Suarez celebrates his second hat trick of the season at the DW stadium

Suarez has bewildered defenders week in, week out and scored not only a great number of goals, but also a great number of great goals. He has played as a spearhead striker for most of the season, leading Liverpool’s forward line with little in the way of support around him. Latterly, he has been deployed behind Daniel Sturridge and struck up, in a handful of games, the kind of telepathic partnership that usually requires months of practice to attain. He has even played on the left wing for Brendan Rodgers and still managed to excel. He is playing in a side that has little hope of attaining Champions League football and one that has included teenagers and underachievers as his main support acts for much of the season. In Steven Gerrard’s mind he is the best player the Liverpool captain has ever played with. Think about that for a second. Michael Owen won the Ballon d’Or while playing with Gerrard. Wayne Rooney has featured for years alongside Gerrard for England. Fernando Torres was the best striker on the planet during his time alongside Liverpool’s skipper. Yet unequivocally, Gerrard rates Suarez higher than all of them. It’s little wonder.

Suarez’s superiority this season is no slight on the incredible contributions of Bale and van Persie who both produce wonderful moments at crucial times, which is indeed the hall mark of the world’s great players. However, while van Persie can stun opponents with one piece of cerebral movement and Bale can unleash an exocet missile with an effortless swing of his elegant left foot, neither have been as influential as Suarez. Wherever he is on the pitch, whoever the opponent, Suarez affects games with alarming regularity. It seems that no game in which he is participating in is ever more than a few seconds away from his involvement. Whether it’s leaving a defender eating the Anfield turf, killing a high ball with his chest and rounding Tim Krul to score one of the goals of the season or spraying one of the best passes you could wish to see to Daniel Sturridge at the Emirates, whatever the game, you can almost guarantee that Liverpool’s number 7 is on the verge of producing something special and stamping his authority on it.

RVP, Bale and Suarez: The three outstanding players this season

This isn’t merely opinion, even the stats back up how influential Suarez has been this season in the Premier League. He has scored more goals than anyone else, he has taken more touches in the penalty area than any other player, he has played more key passes than any other forward in the league and he has also taken more shots than his peers. It’s a shame no one is counting nutmegs as Suarez has probably accrued more of them than the rest of the league combined. For Liverpool he is essentially two players rolled into one. He is their goal scorer and also their best creator of chances. That is incredibly rare and it perfectly encapsulates his crucial involvement throughout the season. It is all the more remarkable when you consider that he is playing in a side that is a long way behind the likes of Manchester United or Tottenham.

Perhaps the best way to sum up Suarez’s dominance even over two outstanding talents like Bale and van Persie is that while those two players regularly produce moments that define games, Suarez has the propensity to dominate them from start to finish. His playing style is utterly unique. A blend of tireless work ethic, mercurial skill, inventiveness and lethal finishing, he is the most enthralling and entertaining player these shores have seen since Cristiano Ronaldo departed for Madrid. It won’t be him, but regardless of who it is picking up the trophy, Luis Suarez is the player of the year.