Michael Owen spent four years at Newcastle, when through injury he managed to play only 70 times for the club and scored 30 goals, largely because of all the injuries he picked up, and a number of those came when he was playing for England.
Michael Owen – an unsuccessful time at Newcastle
Michael cost Newcastle a massive £17M from Real Madrid in August, 2005, and we paid him around £110K/week over those four years – so he cost Newcastle around £40M in wages and transfer fee over those four years – all for just 30 goals – that’s £1.33M for every goal he scored for us, and it was not a good deal for Newcastle, to put it mildly.
Demba Ba scored 29 goals in just 58 appearances and eighteen months when he was at Newcastle until last January.
This is what Michael Owen has said today:.
“When people talk about a club of Newcastle’s size, yes it’s a big stage with a big following but they aren’t used to winning trophies every year, are they?”
‘It depends how you quantify a big club — they aren’t steeped in history in terms of winning the league dozens of times or anything like that.”
“I look at them now and see an established Premier League team who you don’t look at and think are going to go down. That could be classified as success in itself.”
“OK, they have had the heady heights of qualifying for the Champions League in the past, but they have also flirted with relegation and been relegated. To be midway in the Premier League, they are doing fine. I’d say a par score for Mike Ashley.”
“He bought Newcastle and put money into the club. They had a fantastic season two years ago, flying high and spending really wisely in the French market. Last season was a bit of a low. This year they’ve been inconsistent.”
“We know times have changed from a decade ago when they were the great entertainers and thousands of fans turned up to welcome big-money signings. It’s a more sensible ship now.”
We are a more sensible club because we don’t over pay for our players like we used to under Freddy Shepherd, but the opposite could also be true, we don’t pay enough for them.
And Newcastle are certainly not classed as a big club because of what we’ve won – especially over the last 40 years- but there’s not many clubs in England that can play in front of 52,000 fans and yet haven’t won anything for 44 years.
In fact only Newcastle United – that’s why we are a big club – and think what can happen if we actually win something.
Comment welcome.
3 comments so far
Graeme
Oct 27, 2013 at 12:46 AM
Comment #1We were a flash club, for sure. Threw the money about, but it wasnt actually our money, or the owners money was it? It was the banks money.
I would say that the last time we were in fact a truly “Great Club” would be when we won the FA Cup, 3 times in 4 years in the 1950’s. Then we did amazingly well winning the Inter City Fairs cup in 1969, got to the semis and the 1/4’s in later years.
Keegan got us to 2nd place, but should have won the title but bottled it, we got Champions League and some amazing memories from that era. Losing first three group games yet still qualifying for knockouts – I think we are still the only club to do that. Asprilla went balistic to score some amazing goals to get us through.
Man, those were the days – such amazing, happy memories.
Charlietoon
Oct 27, 2013 at 12:54 AM
Comment #2I wish the reporter had asked “How did it feel to Captain a club of Newcastle’s size into relegation”
dcdick
Oct 27, 2013 at 1:12 AM
Comment #3Does anybody care or even bother to read what Owen has to say about the club hedeserted in the relegation season. ?
He was even made captain to try & get something more from him.
Stay away Owen & keep your big mouth shut about us on MOTD as well.
Oh……….. one other thing as well
Pardew out !!!