Can Owen make a happy return?

May 2 2009 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

Michael Owen tomorrow returns to the club where he spent the best years of his career, but a lack of form merely serves to highlight his fall from grace. Chief sports writer Luke Edwards reports

HE was the boy wonder excelling in a man’s job, prolific, lightning quick and reliably clinical. The golden boy of English football and idolised at Anfield because of it. Even after four years at St James’s Park, Michael Owen somehow remains synonymous with the red of Liverpool.

Although Owen recently told The Journal in a candid interview of his deep affection for Newcastle, the city and the football club, he is still seen as a cold fish by many on Tyneside, slippery, soulless and difficult to get attached to.

For those who know him, that is unfair, but it is public perception that matters and, throughout United’s recent troubles, that interview with The Journal back in March is the only time he has fulfilled his responsibility as captain and talked to the media.

That reluctance to communicate with supporters does not help endear him to anyone.

That Owen will almost certainly sign a new contract should Alan Shearer stay as manager beyond the end of the season and Newcastle remain in the top flight means precious little to those who believe they will soon be watching Championship football.

For those who are being tortured by Newcastle’s flirtation with relegation, the prospect of Owen staying has barely registered.

Newcastle need heroes here now, not highly-paid superstars who may or may not be willing to stay if they survive in the Premier League.

When Owen was played in by Mark Viduka midway through the second-half against Portsmouth on Monday night, most in the crowd rose to their feet anticipating the euphoria of a crucial goal in the club’s survival mission. It was a measure of the man the ball had fallen to, the arch-predator and arguably the most reliable goalscorer of his generation.

It was the one man you wanted to see in that position at that stage of the game, but rather than slide the ball into the bottom corner, Owen inexplicably lost his trademark composure, snatched at the shot and sent a weak effort straight into the arms of a grateful David James.

It was a missed opportunity which, on the night at least, sucked the self-belief out of players and supporters alike as the hope of a vital Newcastle win evaporated.