I'm in the minority because I just don't feel the hate towards Michael.
That may be in part down to the fact that I look back at Owen's career at see a tinge of tragedy to it. He'd done so much for this club and for himself by his early 20s and still much was promised but after he left us that was kind of it. His career was more or less defined, set and done at the age of 24.
But also and perhaps most importantly he did the job for us...and some. He won us a superb haul of trophies! F***ing hell - some of those goals he scored were RAPID! With him on the field, even crocked, you always felt that you could win the match. He was world class. He was all about speed to many but focusing on that betrayed the guy's intelligence on the football field, the fact that he could find those pockets in and around the penalty box always made defenders work doubly hard.
And he contributed FAR more in a red shirt than Torres or Suarez ever did and yet those two seem to get it less from us supporters. Let's just remember, the former transferred DIRECTLY to Chelsea at the last moment leaving us up sh*t creek without a paddle and forcing us into panic buying Carroll at an inflated price (and that went well). The latter...well do I need to say anything about Suarez's shenanigans on and off the field?
Can I blame him for going to Madrid? Given how poor we were during Houllier's last couple of seasons, probably not. However, as we had a truly exciting new manager in Rafa Benitez, the fact that Owen didn't give it a chance is a sour point. But I can only guess he had made up his mind long before Houllier got the boot which I suppose was obvious.
And yeah he went to Man Utd but he was more or less finished by that point. A few token appearances for the Mancs is less of an offence to me than Luis Suarez's behaviour against us during the CL quarter finals. If you want to talk about betrayal from an ex player look at Suarez in both those matches where he actively went out to deceive, cheat and injure our players out of a result. Yet in time Michael will probably still bear the greater brunt of force from us Liverpool supporters which is a shame really.
Owen, Torres, Suarez - all three left under a cloud. But at the end of the day only one of those actually added substance to the Liverpool FC history book. And for that, I am eternally grateful to Michael Owen. It's up to you to decide whether he was a legend in the red shirt. For me, he was.
« Last Edit: Sep 10, 2019 10:05:17 pm by Frankly, Mr Shankly »
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