[lfc-news] The folly of Owen's going - Observer

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The Observer, 15 Aug 2004
The folly of Owen's going
By Ian Ridley

Winning is not everything, Bill Shankly once said; it's the only thing.
Thus will Real Madrid, for whom above all or anyone else victory is
paramount, be unhappy about winning one and losing one. Shankly's Liverpool
used to be in that league.

Michael Owen prepares for life at the Bernabéu, the leaving of Liverpool
having become inevitable. Patrick Vieira, somewhat surprisingly, remains at
Arsenal. Next time the topic of loyalty in the game crops up, let us not
have the lazy generalisation that overseas players do not show the same
commitment to clubs as the home-grown.

Liverpool's victory in Graz in midweek showed, on the surface, that there
is life without Owen. If the club think that all is well, however, Steven
Gerrard having signed a new deal and scored twice to confirm himself their
prime asset, then they are kidding themselves. One Liver bird does not make
a season.

In fact, the Owen sale tells of turbulence within the club, of transition
at best but turmoil at worst. The new manager, Rafael Benítez, was hired to
take them that next step towards winning the championship. They might just
be dropping further away.

Owen, it is believed, did not take to Benítez and had at least a couple of
disagreements with him, indeed. Benítez in turn apparently did not consider
Owen worth the £100,000 a week he was reported to be asking. That is £10m
for two seasons. Now Liverpool are about to find out the cost of replacing
him, in fees as well as wages. And merchandise.

The willingness to sell Owen makes no sense at all, either in footballing
or business terms, certainly not at the cut-price £8m fee (when Didier
Drogba goes for more than £20 million?), plus a makeweight. He has had
injuries and, yes, he had only a year left on his contract. But they had a
guarantee of goals that any replacement is not sure to provide as he
settles in.

Liverpool also had the public-relations element: a native son, symbol of
the club, a totem for fans. Better, surely, to do a deal for a few more
years at the end of which his value and the market might be more buoyant.
Owen, in theory, should still be a few years from his prime, after all.

Had Gérard Houllier stayed, that would probably have been the scenario.
Owen has always talked, even recently, about wanting to remain at the club.
Benítez, however, is clearly intent on establishing his own regime at the
Melwood training ground, one that Owen could not have been happy with. The
Spaniard is clearly a talented coach, given the wonders he worked at
Valencia, but this is a key early moment for his management.

One wonders what the club's potential new chairman, Steve Morgan, thinks of
it all. The current captain David Moores, seasick in the choppy waters of
late, is said to be ready to accept the Morgan money that the club
apparently need to bridge the gap between them, Arsenal, Chelsea and
Manchester United. It could all leave the chief executive, Rick Parry,
eyeing the FA's equivalent position.

Towards the end of last season, Morgan was critical of the Anfield regime,
citing a lack of passion for the red jersey. The home-grown players of the
1960s, '70s and '80s possessed it in abundance, he said, unlike the current
crop.

Now Benítez has lost two local lads in Danny Murphy and Owen. Murphy,
indeed, said that he chose Charlton, rather than Tottenham, because he did
not wish to work again under a foreign-style coaching set-up and preferred
the Englishness at the Valley, where Alan Curbishley is building up a
quietly impressive portfolio.

Rather than Antonio Nuñez, Benítez now needs to make a significant signing,
someone like Pablo Aimar from his previous club Valencia, a creative player
capable of exciting the Liverpool public and getting them on his side. The
mood, particularly with the departure of Owen, is one of scepticism if not
suspicion.

Naturally, good results will soften that mood. Houllier, in common with
Arsène Wenger when he first arrived, sought to retain an English core to
the team but it seems a policy that has had its day. Only Sir Alex Ferguson
and Sir Bobby Robson continue to retain that belief at the top of the
Premiership.

With the demise of his old guard, Wenger now introduces few Englishmen,
though he will point out that Vieira's length of service at the club makes
him as Arsenal as any domestic player coming through the ranks. The
breakdown of the move to Real may have had more to do with a disagreement
over personal terms, but the feeling remains that Vieira will still give
his all, despite any disappointment, as long as freedom from injury permits.

And so the Premiership loses another English player it can ill afford to.
On Wednesday, we will see a half-empty St James' Park when a young England
side take on Ukraine in a friendly. Excessive prices have something to do
with it, as does an over-familiarity with the international game after Euro
2004, but it is also the arrival of the league of nations competition that
is the Premiership that will hurt the attendance.

Why watch works in progress when you can have the exotic finished article?
And why have Liverpool thrown the baby, in Michael Owen, out with the
bathwater when it was the underachievers and undercommitted they were
supposed to be shedding?

Not quite last call for Zizou

Some players, some moments, transcend partisanship. Zinedine Zidane is one
of those, his added-time free-kick for France against England this summer
earning admiration despite breaking a nation's heart. Now he has called
time on his international career, after 10 years and 93 appearances.

'Zizou' began in similar fashion to the England game near his ending.
Following France's failure to qualify for the World Cup of 1994, he got his
chance as a substitute that late summer against Czechoslovakia. The French
were 2-0 down before Zidane rescued a draw with a fierce long-range shot
and a bullet header and was dubbed Zorro by the French press the next day.
My palate for the game was a little jaded but, watching on television on
holiday in France, I could not help but be reinvigorated.

Since then he has been the outstanding European talent of his generation.
Quite apart from the instant control, the tricks, the passing range, the
shooting and the powerful heading, he has always possessed a fierce work
ethic and a respect for the team that marks out the great.

The consolation for audiences is that by terminating his international
career, Zidane has probably extended his time at the top level of the club
game by at least a season. It should also be good news for Michael Owen.


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