A few months ago, Michael Owen indirectly blamed Liverpool for his injury-ravaged career, claiming that 'I would have been at my best for longer if I'd been managed differently'. Given the fact Owen played almost 90 games for the Reds between the ages of 17 and 18, he probably has a point, and Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson has jumped on the bandwagon, and laid into Liverpool for botching Owen's development.
Speaking to The Mirror in November, Owen insisted:
"I've become injury prone due to overplaying at a young age, suffering an injury as a result and then having a dreadful rehabilitation at such a critical time.
"Had I been managed differently I would have been at my best for longer".
In his press conference on Friday, Ferguson concurred with Owen's assessment, and blasted the Reds for allowing him to play continuously without any real breaks. He told Reporters:
"If Michael Owen had got the proper development [at LFC], he would have been an absolute world-class player.
"He had a youth tournament in 1997 in Malaysia for a month. We had two players in it and gave them a month off when they came back.
"Michael was in the Liverpool team the next week, then played in the World Cup the following summer. You have to develop players physically as well as technically and these tournaments don't always fit."
Irrespective of what fans think of Owen and Ferguson, they both have a point here with regards to Liverpool's handling of the striker in the 1990s.
It's hard to imagine the likes of Raheem Sterling, Suso and Andre Wisdom playing 44 games at the age of 17, which is what Owen did in his debut season (!) That year - 1997-98 - Only Steve McManaman played more games than Owen, which is pretty staggering considering the squad also included the likes of Fowler, Redknapp, McAteer, Ince and Berger.
Brendan Rodgers seems to be handling Liverpool's young players in the right way, but he made the same mistake as Roy Evans during the first half of this season. From August to December, Sterling made more appearances overall than any other Reds player. That's changed in the second half of the season, but the youngster is now struggling with a niggling injury, which could be a consequence of being overplayed.
In 1997-98, Liverpool's squad lacked strength in depth, which arguably forced Evans' hand with regards to playing Owen. The same can be said about the current Liverpool team, and Rodgers' use of Sterling. However, Rodgers had a chance to rectify that somewhat when he took over, but, in my view, his summer transfer business can only be described as catastrophic:
* Joe Allen: Good player, but not needed, and doesn't fit in.
* Sahin: Played out of position. Wasted by Rodgers.
* Fabio Borini: Zero impact. Hampered by injuries.
* Oussama Assaidi: Total waste of money. Rarely played by Rodgers.
Despite an outlay of over £30m for the above, none of these players have made any positive impact on Liverpool's season. Assaidi should've played the bulk of Sterling's games, but for whatever reason, Rodgers has regularly ignored him.
The overall point here is this: IF Rodgers had signed the right players - specifically a top winger who's play regularly - then Sterling wouldn't have had to play as many games.
Let's hope Rodgers does a better job in the transfer market this summer.
Jaimie Kanwar
NOTE: Please stick to the Comment Policy (Click to read)
Speaking to The Mirror in November, Owen insisted:
"I've become injury prone due to overplaying at a young age, suffering an injury as a result and then having a dreadful rehabilitation at such a critical time.
"Had I been managed differently I would have been at my best for longer".
In his press conference on Friday, Ferguson concurred with Owen's assessment, and blasted the Reds for allowing him to play continuously without any real breaks. He told Reporters:
"If Michael Owen had got the proper development [at LFC], he would have been an absolute world-class player.
"He had a youth tournament in 1997 in Malaysia for a month. We had two players in it and gave them a month off when they came back.
"Michael was in the Liverpool team the next week, then played in the World Cup the following summer. You have to develop players physically as well as technically and these tournaments don't always fit."
Irrespective of what fans think of Owen and Ferguson, they both have a point here with regards to Liverpool's handling of the striker in the 1990s.
It's hard to imagine the likes of Raheem Sterling, Suso and Andre Wisdom playing 44 games at the age of 17, which is what Owen did in his debut season (!) That year - 1997-98 - Only Steve McManaman played more games than Owen, which is pretty staggering considering the squad also included the likes of Fowler, Redknapp, McAteer, Ince and Berger.
Brendan Rodgers seems to be handling Liverpool's young players in the right way, but he made the same mistake as Roy Evans during the first half of this season. From August to December, Sterling made more appearances overall than any other Reds player. That's changed in the second half of the season, but the youngster is now struggling with a niggling injury, which could be a consequence of being overplayed.
In 1997-98, Liverpool's squad lacked strength in depth, which arguably forced Evans' hand with regards to playing Owen. The same can be said about the current Liverpool team, and Rodgers' use of Sterling. However, Rodgers had a chance to rectify that somewhat when he took over, but, in my view, his summer transfer business can only be described as catastrophic:
* Joe Allen: Good player, but not needed, and doesn't fit in.
* Sahin: Played out of position. Wasted by Rodgers.
* Fabio Borini: Zero impact. Hampered by injuries.
* Oussama Assaidi: Total waste of money. Rarely played by Rodgers.
Despite an outlay of over £30m for the above, none of these players have made any positive impact on Liverpool's season. Assaidi should've played the bulk of Sterling's games, but for whatever reason, Rodgers has regularly ignored him.
The overall point here is this: IF Rodgers had signed the right players - specifically a top winger who's play regularly - then Sterling wouldn't have had to play as many games.
Let's hope Rodgers does a better job in the transfer market this summer.
Jaimie Kanwar
NOTE: Please stick to the Comment Policy (Click to read)
Norman whiteside????
ReplyDeleteI missed the game and I didnt get to see MOTD,Whats the general feeling from the game?
ReplyDeletewell here we go again Ferguson talking poo as usual, Owen left Liverpool for Real Madrid he failed then went to Newcastle where arguably this was the place what sent him backwards. At Newcastle he was injured for the majority of his stay. All i have to say about Ferguson is one name; Wayne Rooney. he signed him when he was 18 and he played about 30 times in his first year and maintained that amount, in fact Rooney was playing considerable amounts of games from an earlier age.
ReplyDeleteFerguson likes to blame Liverpool but i blame Owen for going to Real Madrid then on to Newcastle, Liverpool made him good enough to turn Madrid's head, whatever happens from their is his own doing!!!
To be fair an injured Owen is better than a fully fit borini!!!!
rogers and his signings for the most part don't work......Allen and courtino in midfield....are you joking both 5 foot and 8 stone p*ss wet through ....borini....complete waste of time coupled with the fact he didn't want to come here ...Sturridge has the ability but i doubt his mentality and more so rogers ability to get the best out of him...assadi ....less said the better...whats even more ridiculous is rogers is now meant to be offering an olive branch to carroll after publicly humiliating him....we are going nowhere fast not this season not next season
ReplyDeleteOwen never thought of this until Ferguson put the idea into his head;yes it was Ferguson who made the statement first,not Owen!
ReplyDeleteIt was just another piece of nastiness from Fungusface to discredit LFC.
He did a similar thing with the Suarez/Evra situation,by taking Evra aside to convince him of making the complaint against Suarez..A typical piece of Ferguson opportunism to run Liverpool fc down further!
I don't think BR is good enough. There is hardly any sign of progress this season but changing manager every year is no good. I think Liverpool will give BR another season just for the sake of consistency in management.
ReplyDeleteYou've got a point. I suppose it is about trying to find that line between giving the players a bit of what they want, to keep them happy and making them do what you want, for the good of the team. It is tough. I suspect Brendan may be a bit of a pushover in this regard, but for all we know he could be quite different behind the scenes.
ReplyDeleteIt is like last season- you had to know Kenny and know what he is about and how he works in order to know his 'everything is great' spiel (admittedly delivered with inscrutable misery) is just a front.
Some day it would be nice to see Owen take responsibility for their own actions as opposed to consistently pointing the finger at others.
ReplyDeleteAlmost completely one sided mate. They had 2 shots on our goal. Reina had nothing to do for large parts of the game but he saved us being more humiliated by making 2 good saves.
ReplyDeleteWe created a plethora if chances- Suarez had 7 attempts I think? His face was of pure disbelief as their keeper made save after save against him. Sturridge had a couple if chances as did Coutinho. All saved. Their keeper had a 'worldie' as they say.
Coutinho had a goal ruled out for offside- a nice little Brazilian flick into the net from inside the 6 yard box. Was the correct decision unfortunately.
We could have won 4 or 5 nil lets put it that way.
Ah.... :/ cheers mate :)
ReplyDeleteDid you watch the game yesterday?
ReplyDeleteWhat Ferguson doesn't say is the two he rested weren't good enough to be in his 1st team the following week and definitely not good to be at the world cup.More sad opportunism from Ferguson.You better believe had he had Owen at that time he would have played him. As for Michael he needs to look at his personal decisions and accept responsibility.
ReplyDeletemicheal owen is a rat and if liverpool never played him he would have scored against argentina in 98 "the greatest goal of his life" he said so who cares has for brendan are a few liverpool fans gutted we wern't in the semi's like last year
ReplyDeletekenny is great a better manager than brendan will ever be 10 over brendan will never win a trophy with liverpool i would take kenny back in a heartbeat he beat the big teams and had 10 unlucky games like yesterday last season but he is a born winner
ReplyDeleteyes it reminded me of alot of games last year were the goalie was man of the match and kenny was sacked so brendan should be
ReplyDeleteIs funny how Fergie is talking about a team he says he is not thinking about. Maybe he realized that he messed up with Pogba also!
ReplyDeleteYes, why?
ReplyDeleteany chance for a dig from fergie. same celebration for fergie as it was for thatcher.........
ReplyDeleteWe all know what Fergie is, he has his own set of wooden spoons to do it with! ~Owen should man up and admit he should never had left, greedy little man!!
ReplyDeleteI thought the United guys that went to that tournament and got the month off didn't turn into World Class players. So how did it work out for them??
ReplyDeletePerhaps LFC did over play him, difference is he made the difference and wanted to play, nor did he or his agents complain when he won balloon D'or. It's probably worth highlight Fergy played Rooney more times in the same age range Lfc allegedly overplayed Owen.
ReplyDeleteOwen was a top player who was unlucky with injuries.
That twist and ouch moment for England... You can't legislate for that.
Yawn
ReplyDeleteAnd how many games did Rooney play as a teenager under Fergie then? Oh sorry, that would be suggesting Fergie is a hypocrite.
ReplyDeletelike me jason carr and gilstrap are pro-kenny and never thought so called fans would give a bum like brendan more time than a man who fights for the 96 and the city of liverpool with his wifes charity and more to the point has built title winning sides in 87/88 and 90 plus he took blackburn to the prem in 95 and shocked everyone who said he is too old in his 1st 5mths and the kop sung happy birthday when we were 3-0 up against man u ! fergie likes brendan and fat sam because there no threat but rafa and kenny who fergie stitched up with evra was a threat YNWA
ReplyDeleteExactly! Fergie used to flog teenage sensation Norman Whiteside through 50+ games a year back in the early 80'es. At 26 Norman retired with a busted knee. So Fergie's been there, done that, he knows what he's talking about.
ReplyDeleteRyan Giggs was born in 1973 and turned 17 in November 1990. In the 1991-92 Season when he was 18 he made 51 appearances and made 46 the season after then 58 and subsequently averaged at least 40 games a season until 2008-09.
ReplyDeleteOwen Born in December 1979 played 2 games in his 1996-97 debut season when he was 17 just as Like Giggs had done in 1990-91.
In 1997-98 Owen had to step in for the injured Robbie Fowler and would go on to make 44 appearances then 40 and 30 in the subsequent seasons. 2002-03 would mark his highest number of appearances in a season at 54 and the second highest was 46 in 2000-01.
When you compare these stats you then wonder where both Fergie and Owen are coming from since Fergie himself was playing Giggs more at the same stages while Owen is not the first prodigy to play regularly from a young age. He shares this distinction with the likes of Pele, Giggs, Chamberlain and Sterling to name a few.
When you consider Pele and Giggs had their fair share of injuries but played or still playing way longer than Owen it then comes down to how they individually looked after themselves other than what the clubs offered.
Owen had a worse time with injuries after he left Liverpool but he chose to ignore that only him was the constant in all this given all the subsequent medical teams did not blame Liverpool till he was at United where the idea formed in his head since if he knew this beforehand he could have spoken about it while incapacitated at Newcastle.
One also wonders why he wanted to come back to the club that he blames for cutting his career short on at least 3 occasions after he left. A prevalent blame culture and hypocrisy are not very flattering.
Honestly, this is where i feel BR has really let himself himself down, there is no way that Sterling should have been played in so many games this season, Fergie would never have run a young player like that into the ground the way BR has with Sterling, you do not just throw a young player into the deep end like that & then sit back expecting him to improve...., for me Sterling as in most young players need to be introduced slowly into the first team, bring him on when we are playing well........., let him gain confidence.........., then rest him, keeping him hungry to play........etc.
ReplyDeleteShame really because Sterling was looking like one of our best young talents to come through the ranks for quite some time at the start of the season......
Looks like a shadow of the same player now though....
He (Kenny) would never have overplayed the young Sterling in the manner in which BR has....
ReplyDeleteNot only has the guy (Sterling) gained a niggling injury but his confidence IMO seems shot to pieces.....
You can actually see the decline in his performances this season.
So he ruins a players career and that gives home the right to lecture other clubs, does it? Did you read the comment regarding how many games giggs played? Fergie might know what hes talking about but it didn't stop him from not acting on what he knew.
ReplyDeleteFergie would never run a young player into the ground?
ReplyDeleteTell that to Norman Whiteside.
He played Giggs 51 times in his first full season at 18, played him 46 times the season after.
Give me a break
How did fergie stitch up dalglish with Evra? Take your head out of kd's ass for a minute and think about what you say rather than blindly supporting people
ReplyDeleteSo you think Kenny shouldn't have been sacked for those kind of performances but Rodgers should? Good logic.
ReplyDeleteAre you really saying that Coutinho has been a poor signing? Wow... staggering. One wonders what type of player would make you happy.
ReplyDeletePeople forget that when Rogers arrived he had no scoutig network and had to wit several months to get the people he wanted (due to release cluses) so to some extent his signings were rushed, and hence why he went for players he knew (Borini, Allen).
Allen started well and hopefully willcome back better next season - just as Lucas came through despite most fans wanting shut.
Say what you say about AF but he is right. Owen was overplayed during his early years. A 17-18 year old knows no better and wants to play every game he can, so it's up to the management to handle the situation. Rooney also was played a lot when AF signed him and he then seemed to pick injuries from everywhere.
ReplyDeleteAlso we cannot compare one players to another as every player is physically different from the other.
Not sure what owens problem is. Has he forgotten he was only considered world class when playing for liverpool. His career ended the day he left us. He always had injury problems and picked up his worst injuries playing for england and newcastle. So instead of thanking liverpool for making him world class he has a go. I wonder was he asking to be rested when he was up for ballon dor I doubt it.
ReplyDeletemate!!! when you compare owen and giggs interms of longetivity and number of games played, please keep in mind that giggs is a mid-fielder and owen is a forward, who has to make scintillating runs in order to score goals
ReplyDeleteOne of the early indicators of impending senility in old people is when you start repeating yourself.....here's a suggestion Fergie VISIT YOUR DOCTOR AND LET HIM DO SOME TESTS.
ReplyDeleteWhile you are about it ask him to teach you how to chew gum without your mouth being wide open, it shows poor form and its something you should have learnt when you were a small brat.
How do you know it's something to with the agents? Agents get a bad name as they're treated as a scapegoat for a player wanting to leave, look at Rooney the other year saying he wanted to leave and all you saw in the newspapers was Rooney to City but a week later he had signed a £250,000 or something like that deal with United. Instead of Rooney getting any flack for being a money grabber which he actually is Fergie blamed the agent.If you ever get a chance read The Secret Footballer autobiography. Not only is it an interesting read, it also opens up fans eyes to what football is really like.
ReplyDeletemanyoo had Ronnie Wallwork, John Curtis and Jon Macken in that tournament. Luckily, the month's rest those 3 had enabled them to really fulfill their world class potential, didn't it?
ReplyDeleteMaybe you are considering Giggs current role in central midfield in the last few years but he was a speedy wing from his breakout season up until he slowed down after almost 15 years of being a regular winger.
ReplyDeleteHe had his fair share of harmstring injuries which also afflicted Owen since they were both speedy.
Watch a few of his matches from the 90s and you will see how he had to adjust his game to his current one.
I think since many fast players have now come on the scene, old speed merchants like Giggs seem slower but in his heyday he was certainly hailed as a speedy winger.
This means he was more at risk since he ran more on the wing than Owen' short bursts as a central striker..
The main difference would be Giggs re-invented himself while Owen did not know how to do that once the speed was gone.
ferguson has a selective memory-remember norman whiteside!!!
ReplyDeleteWell, the fact of the matter is that Sterling IMO was not ready to be run into the ground & he has suffered because of it, Giggs however was able to cope with it.....
ReplyDeleteI guess its all about how you handle young players, personally i think Sterling has regressed.......
I don't think Giggs did, did he....?
what im saying is playing allen and coutino at the same time in a midfieild 3 is crazy
ReplyDeleteps he has scouts at swansea and you would assume he follows football so thats a lame excuse ...we live in a mulit media world with agents bombarding managers with info
ReplyDeletethats to much info.....the phrase short and sweet....or in owens case short and shithouse
ReplyDeleteThere were reports stating that Rodgers had no scouts for talents last summer. He had to rely on make-do reports as the scout we recruited was on gardening leave from another club. The Jan transfer was more successful although both Sturridge and Coutinho has much more to prove.
ReplyDeleteSo Fergie had a crystal ball which told him Giggs wouldn't get injured did he?
ReplyDeletePity it didn't work for poor Norman, he could have done with it.
Fergie was lucky with some and not with others. Sterling is hardly finished..
Assaidi isn't a waste of money...its just Rodgers not giving him a chance!
ReplyDelete