Why on Earth does Michael Owen care about his paper player rating?

By Mark Lawrenson

Published 22:18 30/10/09

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Michael Owen made me laugh this week when he talked about marks out of ten and player ratings in newspapers.

Owen seemed to be a bit upset that he would get seven out of ten when he scored and a lesser mark when he didn’t even though he’d played better in his opinion.

What on earth has the world come to when multi-million pound players get so worked up about ratings? The managers don’t take any notice and, in fact, it’s only the players who seem to worry.

I can honestly say it never bothered me. But one team mate at Liverpool - and I genuinely can’t remember for the life of me who it was - got the right hump when the Sunday People first introduced ratings in the 1980s.

The player got a four out of ten, was raging about it for weeks and then finally saw the journalist concerned a few weeks later and said to him: “How on earth did you give me a four?“

The journo came straight back at him: “Because four’s the lowest mark and so I couldn’t give you a three!“ It was a brilliant come back and had us all in stitches.

A few years ago - and we have laughed about it recently - Martin Keown’s mum rang Radio Five Live to complain because I’d given him some stick on air during an Arsenal game!

The great thing about football is that it’s all about opinions and no-one is right and no-one is wrong. Which makes it even more funny as to why some players take it so seriously!

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