Why Michael Owen needs to stop living in the past

Three previous owners, injury prone, seen better days, available for nothing but needs a good home. Any takers for Michael Owen?

As if issuing an impressive, glossy 32 page sales brochure wasn't enough, Owen has gone on a "charm offensive" this week.

That should be pretty easy for a player who was described in the sales pitch as "fit and healthy, good looking, sincere, respected and charismatic".

But, no. In the interview I heard on Talksport, Owen still had that familiar chip on his shoulder which suggests to me that he thinks the world owes him a living on the basis of that wondergoal against Argentina at France 98.

Owen said: "They have always been writing me off. They wrote me off six months after I scored that goal against Argentina and they have been writing me off ever since."

I presume the "they" he referred to meant journalists and the press. Quite what that says about the interviewer, I don't know. But I just think it's so wrong. Owen has been a darling of the back pages when he's been scoring goals. And when he doesn't score goals, he gets some criticism. There's not too much wrong with that.

I've always been a huge Michael Owen fan. In fact, I've been one of those morons who keeps on saying that he should be in the England squad because he could still come on and score a goal.

His record for England is sensational. Forty goals in 89 caps. But that is in the past. There is no way on earth that his form for Newcastle last season warrants an England place.

If Owen's previous record for England entitles him to a call-up, then maybe Fabio Capello should look at calling up Sir Bobby Charlton or Gary Lineker. They both scored more goals for England than Owen has to date.

Capello has done a wonderful thing for England - he's picked players not on reputations but on form. And that's why Owen has been left out in the cold by Capello.

Owen's injury problems have frustrated his attempts to make an impression under Capello, though the forward has been overlooked when available.

He featured in the Italian's first three squads, playing the second half in a defeat against France in Paris, only to withdraw from the friendlies against United States and Trinidad last summer, citing mumps.

But in truth, it's hard now to see any way back for Owen. The brochure takes up four pages defending his injury record, says that, at 29, he's still young and is "seeking the right opportunity to remind people why he was once crowned European Footballer of the Year".

Hang on a minute. If Owen was that good why did his great friend, Newcastle's Super Alan Shearer, drop him and left him on the bench for the Toon Army's final win-or-bust game at Aston Villa?

Owen came on for the final 24 minutes, did very little and Newcastle went down. I watched Owen play for Newcastle at Tottenham under Shearer, too.

Owen did so little in that game that it was easy to forget he was still playing. This is a guy earning a six figure weekly salary.

Then we come to the charismatic claim. In press conferences, Owen is cold, distant and stand-offish. Very few people claim to know him. He has a poor public persona and the last thing he comes across as being is charismatic.

Fit and healthy? You can produce as many statistics and testaments as you like, but the public perception is that he is injury prone.

Respected? Certainly. Good looking? Who am I to judge? Sincere? He was certainly sincere when he took the Daily Express to the High Court, winning damages and an apology for suggesting he was about to quit to concentrate on training horses.

Frankly, if ever there was an own goal then that was it. Sorry, Michael, but you should be apologising to Newcastle for years of under-achievement.

Yet, despite all of this, there are clubs willing to take on Owen, albeit on vastly reduced wages. Stoke and Hull have both confirmed their interest.

Both did brilliantly to stay up last season, but it's not exactly Liverpool or Real Madrid. The brochure is published in Spanish and Italian as well, but Owen, we are told, wants to stay in the Premier League.

Strangely enough, the top four haven't come calling yet. When one of my journalist colleagues suggested on a show on BBC Five Live that Manchester United should sign Owen, the studio fell into a dumbstruck silence which begged the question: "Are you sure?"

See. There you go. One journalist still believes in Owen. But Owen has to face facts. If it wasn't for his glorious past and reputation, there would be very few takers. If any at all. Certainly not at £50,000-a-week-plus.

That's what gets me. It's time Owen forgot the past. Forgot going on about being written off by the mysterious "they" character and concentrated on re-inventing himself.

Show a bit of personality, warmth, passion and, dare I say it, charisma. But much more than that, get back to scoring goals and proving you can still do it in the top flight. I still think he can be a prolific Premier League goalscorer.

Because while that chip on his shoulder is still holding him back, Owen is stuck in the past.

Football and life has been good to Owen. It's about time he started appreciating it.

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