By George, it looks like Benitez has inspired Fergie's Owen true love
Sunday July 12 2009
There is an episode of Seinfeld that may explain Alex Ferguson's decision to sign Michael Owen (I have found that there's an episode of Seinfeld that best illustrates most things in life).
The great George Costanza is explaining his dating technique to Seinfeld, or Seinfield if you're Pat Kenny. He will be going out with a sales girl he met, although it's not so much a date as she has some errands to run and George will accompany her.
Jerry wonders if that can technically be referred to as a date. "What's the difference?" George asks. "You know the way I work, I'm like a commercial jingle. First it's a little irritating, then you hear it a few times, you're humming it in the shower."
There may be more truth in this theory of seduction than in all the romantic tales, but it may also serve as an illustration of the havoc Rafael Benitez caused when he decided to take on Alex Ferguson last January, havoc that seems to have affected Ferguson so badly he decided to sign a player 10 days ago who hasn't played meaningful football since he signed for Newcastle, not that anyone else at St James' Park either.
Benitez was savaged for his criticisms of Ferguson but they lodged in the Manchester United manager's mind. Ferguson, it was initially confidently predicted, would laugh them off, but instead, like an irritating jingle, he couldn't shake them from his head. Ferguson kept returning to Benitez, making a fool of himself most spectacularly when he joined in the co-ordinated campaign to complain about Benitez's lack of respect towards Sam Allardyce when the Liverpool manager made an ambiguous hand gesture on the sideline. We have the evidence that Benitez's irritating public performances have already triggered some sort of psychotic episode in Ferguson.
From there, it is not too difficult to imagine him being motivated, at least in part, by a determination to exact a revenge beyond the obvious of winning the league, and sign Liverpool favourite Michael Owen, a player Benitez rejected on numerous occasions.
For a while there last season, Fergie had even become an expert on the Liverpool tradition, lecturing the Liverpool manager on the hand gestures expected of a man in charge at Anfield and suggesting that you would never have seen Bob Paisley making a vague, semi-circle gesture with his hands when his side had taken the lead.
This historical awareness may have inspired him to move for Owen who always had a difficult relationship with Liverpool fans as he often seemed to express his delight at playing for England, an understandable emotion when, at club level, he was trying to transport himself to the same wavelength as Bruno Cheyrou and Christian Ziege.
Driven demented once more by the irritating jingle, Ferguson may have looked at Owen and thought 'why not?' Owen insists he is fit to play football, producing some impressive statistics to back up his claims that he is able to play. He is fit but not fit to play football in the manner he once did and in some ways there would be less to worry about if he was just always injured.
He pointed out that he had played more than 30 times for Newcastle in the past two seasons. But, more importantly, he was left out towards the end of the season despite Alan Shearer's excited promise when he took over that Michael Owen was the player to score the goals to take Newcastle out of trouble.
Instead Owen watched from the bench, his limitations exposed and while he will have better players around him now, he will still have to play and that is something he isn't good at doing anymore.
But the move excites those who shape conventional wisdom. Owen is England's striker and he is joining Manchester United in a World Cup year. "We know what Michael Owen's like in a World Cup year," one said. Indeed we do. In the 2005/2006 season, he played 10 times for Newcastle, stumbled into the tournament before suffering another desperate injury, an injury that may finally have robbed him of whatever pace he had left.
They are giddily war-gaming now, planning the build-up to a World Cup semi-final against Brazil, in which Owen, fit from a tremendous season with United, latches on to a Heskey knockdown and puts England in the final. They are adept at thinking several moves ahead, like a chess grand master, but one who gets so excited about the moves down the board, he doesn't notice that it's already check and mate.
Ferguson must be hailed for his "piece of genius" when the reality could be very different. It has already been proclaimed as another masterstroke from the man who recently paid £50m for Owen Hargreaves, Nani and Anderson. They have compared it to the signing of Henrik Larsson but Larsson came almost directly from setting up two goals in the Champions League final to Old Trafford. Owen, through his own reckless choices, hasn't played in the Champions League for five years.
It is hard to see how it can succeed, not when everybody is saying it will. It can't fail, they all say, and Manchester United can't lose as they are getting Owen for nothing. The price is irrelevant. If he plays and doesn't score, then he could cost United matches and then Manchester United lose.
Owen doesn't come with a transfer fee but he comes at a price: England's giddiness. Worryingly for United fans, Owen is already talking excitedly about what this could do for his England career.
The United Store report minimal interest in Michael Owen shirts. The masterstroke might have taken place elsewhere. Rafa's rant was the irritating jingle that still bounces around in Ferguson's head.
dionfanning@gmail.com
- Dion Fanning
