As a Manchester United fan secretly I was hoping that Michael Owen would come to United be reborn as his former self, dispel the “injury prone” label and become the league’s top scorer…
At this point it’s clear that this isn’t realistic and it does not appear that Sir Alex had such lofty ambitions for Owen.
Ferguson has only used Owen sparingly, mostly as a substitute; one of those final roll-of-the-dice players, who you can throw on in a clutch situation and they might be able to nick a goal for you.
Owen had spent most of the summer defending his fitness, saying that he wasn’t an injury prone player. And for the start of the season he backed up that talk and avoided any kind of embarrassing first game blow out.
I think it’s time to be honest; Owen is still a good player who might be able to come on as a substitute and get a goal, but he’s never going to be his former self, he will probably not play any significant future England roll, and he will pick up injuries.
The question now is how much better is the Manchester United treatment room compared to Newcastle. If they can get him back quickly in the next few weeks then he may be able to shrug off this incident, but if it turns into months on the sideline it could be curtains for Owen’s dream comeback.
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