Last chance gone for Michael Owen?

It was all set up for Michael Owen. He had got a surprise transfer to the English champions in the summer after it looked as though he would end his nightmare at Newcastle by moving to somewhere like Hull.

He had settled in slowly at Old Trafford and scored the odd goal and remained relatively injury free. He scored the winning goal in the titanic 4-3 victory for United against City in the Manchester derby and people were saying, for the first time in a very long while, that the twenty-nine year old striker might yet force his way into Fabio Capello’s plans for South Africa 2010.

Selected

On Wednesday night he was selected to start for Manchester United in their Champions League match against Wolfsburg, alongside his potential England strike partner Wayne Rooney and in front of the watching, expectant Capello.

When we saw Dimitar Berbatov warming up with as much intent as Berbatov could ever show, after about ten minutes of the game, it was obvious that something was wrong. This was confirmed when Owen left the field to polite applause after just twenty minutes because of a groin injury.

Sir Alex Ferguson is unsure of how long he will be without his reserve striker,

“Groin injuries are difficult to say. He could be out two or three weeks. His fitness levels are good so we shouldn’t need to worry too much about it. We will treat it as a normal groin injury. He felt his groin after training on Sunday and he trained a little bit on Monday but had a rest day on Tuesday and he thought he was fine.”

There is no doubt that Owen would have been desperate to play in the game but he must have known that he wasn’t right. You might expect a young player desperate to impress to try to hide an injury in order to play but for someone of Owen’s experience that seems to be a surprising choice.

Link

Whilst he was on the pitch, Wolfsburg dominated the game because United couldn’t get the ball to stick up front and there was no link up play in team at all. As soon as Berbatov came on, in his infuriatingly lazy way he held the ball up, linked the play and got United looking like United.

It is probably unfair to criticize Owen who was obviously carrying a knock, but there is no doubt United looked better without him than they did with him.

Possibility

If Capello was considering the return of England’s best striker of recent years then Wednesday night will have made him think again. I would imagine that he wasn’t seriously considering the possibility anyway at this stage, but this will have confirmed what he thinks.

It is a great shame that Michael Owen has suffered as he has with injuries because it is certain that if he had stayed injury free he would have been England’s all time top goal-scorer and regarded as one of the best strikers the world has ever seen. He would still be an automatic choice for England and he would still be terrifying defences around the globe.

As an England supporter I would love to see a fit and fully performing Michael Owen running out in an England shirt in South Africa next June and other countries would be more fearful of England.

Unlikely

Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen. There was half a chance he could have been in the squad for the game in Ukraine and who knows what could have happened from there. Now, he can’t be picked for that game and is extremely unlikely to feature for England again.

It a real shame for Michael Owen and it is also a real shame for England.