Look out! little mickey's back just in time for England! Will he return fit?

[S.S.R.]

Can't anyone state their opinion without saying that people with the opposing view are 'mongs' or 'f****** thick'? It's f****** tedious and arrogant.

 

Whatever you might think of Owen's loyalties or the booing, don't you think think the majority of people who didn't boo deserve a little better from him?

 

He's been paid roughly £5 million for sitting on his backside; couldn't he take it on the chin?

 

He barely celebrated against Wigan, either.

[Dave]

I agree the booing is rather pathetic and helps nobody, but I'm amazed if Owen and the press don't realise why many fans are at their wits end with this situation. Sure, he's been unlucky, but so have we.

[Guest Pie]

I agree the booing is rather pathetic and helps nobody, but I'm amazed if Owen and the press don't realise why many fans are at their wits end with this situation. Sure, he's been unlucky, but so have we.

Top class player. Anyone booing a player in our colours needs their head read. The boos seemed to be directed at Sam in my opinion. Oba did a decent shift of the usual. Good enough to get to the chance -  better off with no time to think.

[KaKa]

Good post by the liverpool guy scousetommy, but it is a totally different situation.

 

They had him at his peak when he actually played the majority of games over a full season. On the other hand, this hasn't been the case with us. People are talking about our best player being driven out, as though he has been a 20 goal a season scorer for us. We've hardly seen him play! If he did leave due to all this it wouldn't be the best situation, but I certainly wouldn't feel that cut up about it. I would be very confident Sam would get a top striker in. For instance if we lost Owen and signed Anelka that would surely be an upgrade right?!

[Guest Sniffer]

No.

[Guest fraser]

Can't anyone state their opinion without saying that people with the opposing view are 'mongs' or 'f****** thick'? It's f****** tedious and arrogant.

 

Whatever you might think of Owen's loyalties or the booing, don't you think think the majority of people who didn't boo deserve a little better from him?

 

He's been paid roughly £5 million for sitting on his backside; couldn't he take it on the chin?

 

He barely celebrated against Wigan, either.

 

The trouble is if you have a reasonable argument it's possible to ruin it totally by writing something as innacurate as, 'He barely celebrated against Wigan, either.' That just isn't true, he was overjoyed.

[S.S.R.]

Can't anyone state their opinion without saying that people with the opposing view are 'mongs' or 'f****** thick'? It's f****** tedious and arrogant.

 

Whatever you might think of Owen's loyalties or the booing, don't you think think the majority of people who didn't boo deserve a little better from him?

 

He's been paid roughly £5 million for sitting on his backside; couldn't he take it on the chin?

 

He barely celebrated against Wigan, either.

 

The trouble is if you have a reasonable argument it's possible to ruin it totally by writing something as innacurate as, 'He barely celebrated against Wigan, either.' That just isn't true, he was overjoyed.

 

Watch it again.

[Guest NUFC4]

Good post by the liverpool guy scousetommy, but it is a totally different situation.

 

They had him at his peak when he actually played the majority of games over a full season. On the other hand, this hasn't been the case with us. People are talking about our best player being driven out, as though he has been a 20 goal a season scorer for us. We've hardly seen him play! If he did leave due to all this it wouldn't be the best situation, but I certainly wouldn't feel that cut up about it. I would be very confident Sam would get a top striker in. For instance if we lost Owen and signed Anelka that would surely be an upgrade right?!

 

i 4 one would be utterly satisfied with losing owen permitting that we in return were able to get anelka

[Guest fraser]

Can't anyone state their opinion without saying that people with the opposing view are 'mongs' or 'f****** thick'? It's f****** tedious and arrogant.

 

Whatever you might think of Owen's loyalties or the booing, don't you think think the majority of people who didn't boo deserve a little better from him?

 

He's been paid roughly £5 million for sitting on his backside; couldn't he take it on the chin?

 

He barely celebrated against Wigan, either.

 

The trouble is if you have a reasonable argument it's possible to ruin it totally by writing something as innacurate as, 'He barely celebrated against Wigan, either.' That just isn't true, he was overjoyed.

 

Watch it again.

 

I saw it first time, from my seat.

[Guest Pie]

Can't anyone state their opinion without saying that people with the opposing view are 'mongs' or 'f****** thick'? It's f****** tedious and arrogant.

 

Whatever you might think of Owen's loyalties or the booing, don't you think think the majority of people who didn't boo deserve a little better from him?

 

He's been paid roughly £5 million for sitting on his backside; couldn't he take it on the chin?

 

He barely celebrated against Wigan, either.

 

The trouble is if you have a reasonable argument it's possible to ruin it totally by writing something as innacurate as, 'He barely celebrated against Wigan, either.' That just isn't true, he was overjoyed.

 

Watch it again.

I have it on SKY plus. He did celebrate like he was overjoyed tbh.

[S.S.R.]

Can't find a video clip, but there was one pic with his arm in the air.

 

Whoops.

 

But, but I did kill Paul Allen.

[Dave]

I wasn't looking at Owen at that point, too busy jumping around like a loon.

[TRon]

To suggest that Owen is being driven out of the club is just mind-boggling to be honest. The truth is most Newcastle fans are desperate to know in their hearts that Michael really, REALLY wants to be here. Not at Man U, not at Liverpool, not at Arsenal. The fans didn't put the escape clause in the contract. The fans aren't rushing to rubbish Allardyce's claims that he needs nursing back. If Mikey wants to maintain a diplomatioc silence every time his Newcastle future is thrown in doubt then why can't he do the same when his club manager expresses perfectly reasonable concerns about his playing two matches in four days, one of them on a plastic pitch?

[Baron von Fat]

Right now our supporters are playing the needy girlfriend role to Owen's attractive gentleman. 

 

"Tell me you love me!  Tell me again!  I don't believe you!"

 

[Shak]

Right now our supporters are playing the needy girlfriend role to Owen's attractive gentleman. 

 

"Tell me you love me!  Tell me again!  I don't believe you!"

 

 

Aye, but he's been blatantly eyeing up his secretary for months now.

[Baron von Fat]

Right now our supporters are playing the needy girlfriend role to Owen's attractive gentleman. 

 

"Tell me you love me!  Tell me again!  I don't believe you!"

 

 

Aye, but he's been blatantly eyeing up his secretary for months now.

 

And when he last scored with us apparently he didn't seem that enthusiastic...

[alpal78]

To me it's just bad PR from Owen. Although he made some valid points on trusting the surgeon's opinion, he could have been more tactful in the way he put the point across. Simply adding "I can understand the Newcastle supporters' frustration as I have not played as many games as I would have liked for them, but....", and conclude with "after coming back from England duty, I intend to put my record right at Newcastle, play as many games and score loads of goals" would have done the job for me.

 

Instead Owen feels that we don't appreciate him for the megastar that he is and instead of trying to understand our frustration, he is just lashing out (albeit diplomatically) in equal frustration.

 

For the record, didn't like the comments he made on Barton, shafting a team mate is never good. I understand that it's probably the journalists who put him on the spot but again a simple "he is entitled to his opinion and I respect that" would have sufficed and been good PR.

 

[Paulie Walnuts]

Good post by the liverpool guy scousetommy, but it is a totally different situation.

 

They had him at his peak when he actually played the majority of games over a full season. On the other hand, this hasn't been the case with us. People are talking about our best player being driven out, as though he has been a 20 goal a season scorer for us. We've hardly seen him play! If he did leave due to all this it wouldn't be the best situation, but I certainly wouldn't feel that cut up about it. I would be very confident Sam would get a top striker in. For instance if we lost Owen and signed Anelka that would surely be an upgrade right?!

 

i 4 one would be utterly satisfied with losing owen permitting that we in return were able to get anelka

I can certainly see this happening if Owen leaves.

[Guest Micktoon]

Good post by the liverpool guy scousetommy, but it is a totally different situation.

 

They had him at his peak when he actually played the majority of games over a full season. On the other hand, this hasn't been the case with us. People are talking about our best player being driven out, as though he has been a 20 goal a season scorer for us. We've hardly seen him play! If he did leave due to all this it wouldn't be the best situation, but I certainly wouldn't feel that cut up about it. I would be very confident Sam would get a top striker in. For instance if we lost Owen and signed Anelka that would surely be an upgrade right?!

 

i 4 one would be utterly satisfied with losing owen permitting that we in return were able to get anelka

 

Yeah thats a great swop. Fuck me, you complain about Owens atitude them want Anelka to replace, him how old are you six?

[ChezGiven]

http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/internationals/article3047559.ece

 

Newcastle plea to FA deepens Owen dispute

By Sam Wallace

Published: 11 October 2007

Michael Owen's suitability to play for England was the subject of a letter sent by Newcastle United to the Football Association this week in which the club raised concerns about the striker's fitness to play in the two forthcoming Euro 2008 qualifiers. This latest development came after it emerged that Owen is privately angry at attempts by his club to say he is not ready to play for his country.

 

The Independent has learned that while the letter from Newcastle did not say specifically that Owen was not fit to play against Estonia on Saturday and Russia four days' later it did make observations about his fitness. It is not clear whether Owen is aware of the correspondence between Newcastle and the FA but it is sure to deepen his suspicion that his club have tried to discourage Steve McClaren from playing him in the two Euro 2008 qualifiers.

 

In the meantime it would appear that McClaren is preparing to leave out Frank Lampard in favour of Gareth Barry for Saturday's match. The Chelsea man has been a regular in the side since 2003 although Barry's performances in the Israel and Russia games have impressed the England manager, who will finalise his team plans tomorrow after the players have today off.

 

Owen normally steers well clear of controversy but he made his feelings very clear yesterday at a press conference at which he was adamant that he had been fit to play for club and country since last Thursday. He even said he told manager Sam Allardyce that he could have started Sunday's game against Everton in which he made a substitute's appearance. Despite that, Newcastle still sent the letter to the FA, which is sure to fuel the tension that is understood to already exist between Owen and Allardyce.

 

The letter from Newcastle is the latest in a series of exchanges between the club and Owen over his fitness and the striker was keen to set the record straight yesterday. While it is not uncommon for the FA to receive a letter about a player's fitness from his club, this one arrived just as Owen was spelling it out to the press just how sure he is that there have been no repercussions from his recent surgery.

 

Usually serene when he speaks to the press, Owen himself admitted yesterday that he was in an "aggressive" mood about the subject and began by announcing "the injury is no longer". Certain to start alongside Wayne Rooney in attack on Saturday, Owen said that his recovery from a double hernia and abductor muscle surgery on 5 October had been completed by Thursday.

 

"By Thursday the injury was obviously fine, I could continue playing just like the surgeon said I would be able to – I was available," Owen said. "The manager could have started me [against Everton], but he put me on the bench, I came on, played quarter of an hour. I'm fit."

 

Later he added: "I thought people would say 'How has he got back in eight days? That's fantastic.' That they'd be talking about how I'd gone through the pain barrier to get back so quickly. But people have turned it into a negative, saying 'You've only done it for England'. You can't win."

 

While Owen said that his relationship with Allardyce was not an issue, there is evidence that the bad feeling between the pair even pre-dates the Newcastle manager's reign at the club. Owen is understood still to be unhappy about comments Allardyce made about his fitness before the 2006 World Cup. This was further stoked by Allardyce's comments after the game on Sunday when he said on Owen's situation – "I don't know whether two games in such a short space of time is right".

 

With the debate over his loyalty to club against country intensifying, Owen defended his own position in uncharacteristically emotive style. He lamented that he had suffered the same problem with Liverpool fans as he was enduring with Newcastle's supporters: that they regarded him as an England player first and a club man second.

 

Owen said: "My room-mate Jamie Carragher, whose family are all Liverpool or Everton fans, in the thick of things in the city, said then [when Owen was at Liverpool]: 'It is because you made your name with England, people associate you with England, until you win something with Liverpool, they will think you are England's player as opposed to Liverpool's.' That label has probably stuck with me through my career and that's unfortunate. Until we won the treble [in 2001] at Liverpool – then I definitely felt a warmth from the fans.

 

"If anything I've always pushed – even when I have been hurt – to play for my club, my country. Your career is so short and I'm hungry to play in any game and score any goal. So to get tagged as someone who's 'just trying to do this' or 'just trying to do that' is wrong.

 

"If I play crap and you tell me, then that's fine. Or if I have an injury and the specialist says it will take this amount of time to come back, I accept that. But once you are back and can tolerate the pain you just keep going.

 

"Then you get people saying the opposite to what she's [surgeon Dr Ulrike Muschaweck] telling you. And that's hard to take because now there are cameras up at Newcastle asking the fans 'Should he be playing?' And it causes a stir that should never ever happen."

 

[Dave]

We probably sent it last week sometime.

[tmonkey]

To be fair to him, if hes fully fit, this must be driving him mental.

 

At the same time, if there was a script to be written for Newcastle fans to utterly turn on Owen, this is pretty much it. Growing suspicion and resentment of the notion that hes rushing back to fitness for yet another England game after years of being injured for club, combined with a crunch qualifying game on an aritifical pitch in near freezing temperatures. If the worst happens and he does get injured, its going to be extremely awkward for him, even if hes completely innocent.

[rocksammy]

i feel if he gets injured playing for england again he will try his hardest to hide it and try and play for us again :S

[merlin]

Alright lads. As a serial lurker on your messageboard I've noticed more and more posts slagging MO off recently, and to be honest, I think the people having a go are completely out of order.

 

I am a Lfc fan and was gutted when he couldn't come back to us the other year, even more so when it became clear that as long as Rafa's in charge then Owen will never come back - but if I could add my two pence worth on the "England" debate I wouls say this:

 

Owen used to have the same thing thrown at him when he was with us, it was used as a stick to beat him with regularly (esp. when he took the place of our hero Fowler). What some people couldn't/didn't want to get their heads around was that the Southern based media weren't interested in our team(which at the time of Owen's emergence wasn't very good) and would rather ask Michael about englands chances in upcoming internationals than the last Houllier inspired bore-athon.You could watch an Owen interview on SKY and see him answer 10 questions, only two or three of which would be about LFC and the rest about England - open the papers the next day and the bits where he talked about goings on at Anfield would be nowhere to be seen - cue many,many phone calls to local radio stations " He doesn't care about us, only cares for England, get rid,etc,etc" - Owen himself has admitted in interviews how much it used to hurt him when he heard these comments.

 

The reason I'm bothering to post is to say this - many of the posters on here (and other forums) are saying much the same thing, get rid we'll replace him with Martins or A.N other, many Liverpool fans said the same when he left us - after  spending £50m+ on Cisse,Baros,Crouch,Morientes,Pongolle and Bellamy we've had to spend a further £26m on Torres to have a striker that comes close to Owens ability.

 

The point is you won't know what you got until he leaves, I've seen posts on sites wherby toon fans are saying that they booed him - believe me lads, you'll regret it if you allow him to be driven out of your club - Do people REALLY believe that he's happy that he's hardly played in the last two years?

 

 

Nail absolutely on head - I honestly believe, Scousertommy, that the damage is already done - you could tell by Owen's reaction/facial expression when he came on as sub last Sunday, that he is really p-----ed off by the childish, small-minded booing which, despite protestations to the contrary by those responsible,are definitely aimed at him because he happened to take 'poor' Oba's place..if it wasn't so mindlessly stupid, it would be laughable ! People come on this site slagging off Owen & bigging up Martins - they say 'Oba's only young' and 'give him a chance, he's still learning' ; What Bulls---t !

Just remind these pea-brains how old Owen was when he scored one of the best World Cup goals of all time against the Argies, and how old he was when he scored a brilliant Hat-trick against NUFC at SJP on the day we had 'Sexy Football' Gullit making his managerial debut..!!

 

All you have said, Scouser, is right on the nail and those of us who still remember when NUFC fans were amongst the most knowledgeable in the game despair at how poor some modern-day fans have become in

both recognizing talent and realising where we stand in the game at this point in time.

 

Still, who knows ? Maybe Rafa will be away in Summer and perhaps Owen will be back in your colours - I for one wouldn't blame him, but the saddest thing is that some of our so-called 'supporters' would use it as an excuse to call him a traitor ; it would be a good way for them to avoid any responsibility for driving him out..

[Razor]

The majority of this was bound to happen and for the most part i think its media hype, but the part we didnt need, as a club was the possiblilty that Owen is upset (and rightly so) with the booing at the match, at the possibilty the fans of his club are against him. I don't know exactly who it was at, and theres debate about it, but booing in that situation is simply not a good idea. We could have Martins thinking it was at him, Sam thinking the same, and worst of all Owen could think (which theres evidence he does) that some fans at SJP were booing him coming on. None of these possibilities do anything other than hurt the club as a unit. If we're gonna get back to where we want as a club we need players like michael owen, sure people say there are others out there as good, but we have him here at the club now, he HAS said that he is happy to be here, wants to play for Newcastle, and yet it seems some still arent happy. Michael Owen is world class, he's here, settled with kids. We cant afford to let him leave because he thinks the fans are against him, when its such a minority. Yes, he does "owe" us some performances, but he's said himself he wants to perform.

 

This is the worst part of the current debate, the conflict that we just didnt need. I for one with be absolutely gutted if he feels we're against him and he leaves, the frustration felt by some is very understandable, but i still don't think its his fault, give him a chance, but wait we've already given him plenty, ok give him one last chance. If he comes back fit for the spurs game he needs a big reception, he needs to feel he's wanted and he's got an equal platform to perform for the club, unless he feels he is given that chance (when he's fit), it'll be game over.