Moneyball won't win the Premiership 2012-13

paranoid, vindictive, hypocritical, defaults to thuggery and brute force to get a result. can see why Warnock wdn't be welcome at Leeds.

Warnock's natural level is at an upper-championship-oblique-epl-relegation-fodder club, Reading would be a positive move for him.

RIP Stoke Striker Michael Owen. You were amazing once.

Or so people of my parents' generation tell me.

Looking forward to seeing Rooney at Stoke.

Does it say which season he's retiring at the end of?

can't help feeling there's a big goal still to come from Owen this season

Mess I will score more goals this season than Owen has managed since he left LFC 9 seasons ago.

Messi

Owen's got me beat by one this season I admit.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-21841876

is there nothing he won't do to emulate Gordon Banks?

you'd think if you can afford to drive a jaguar XF you'd be able to afford to pay your fines (esp if it's a car you won't need for 20 months)

stop having a go at noodle

5 tests, 5 fails :\

paranoid, vindictive, hypocritical, defaults to thuggery and brute force to get a result. can see why Warnock wdn't be welcome at Leeds.

Someone's been watching The Damned United. Which was set in the 1970s.

You can add clueless to that list, as well as insistent on starting every game with Michael fucking Brown.

hi Dom

great picture of joe hart realizing this guy is not on his team

http://i.mol.im/i/pix/2013/03/19/article-2295142-18B64E31000005DC-546_308x330.jpg

is it me or does nult stray into the tone of an obituary in his owen homily:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21843597

you genuinely would think he was dead.

how many more young men will be lost to "the beautiful game"?

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn...

that's our job

A fellow of infinite pace, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a
thousand times.

The beginning of the end for him was at Elland Road:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEUzA1lUgGk

so joe hart's secret to his success in the recent years has been having three arms?
http://i.mol.im/i/pix/2013/03/19/article-2295142-18B64E31000005DC-546_308x330.jpg

the shape of hart's mouth in that picture is terrifying

Michael Schumacher at rest has similar

So who's the next Michael Owen? Feels like half of the young English starlets out there these days meet the 'talented but over-hyped and permanently crocked' brief.

I wasn't paying much attention to football at the time of peak i.e. young Owen, how good was he really? Ballon d'Or aged 21 suggests "rather". What was expected of him?

FFS!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/mar/19/callum-mcmanaman-fa-massadio-haidara

xp - he was a useful striker, but didn't merit the Ballon d'Or

the FA is a fucking humbug as per usual. good to see you can make career-threatening tackles with impunity as long as you don't get sent off on the day

He was a lethal striker, far better than 'useful'

he was prolific until he lost that bit of pace/interest

lil mickey possibly the most subtly realised and underexamined dramatis personae of brit footer in decades imo

paul thomas anderson should do his biopic

He was a lethal striker, far better than 'useful'

I thought he was good, but he didn't score *that* many. I thought the young Fowler was better than the young Owen.

fowler had a lot more to his game, far wider variety of goals. once owen lost his pace that was kind of it, but even before that i sort of remember defences and even keepers getting wise to him.

Fowler was probably more skillful, Owen was more focused.

Both were exceptional forwards.

The weird thing about Owen is how early and how rapidly his career declined. The Ballon D'Or was 2001 (and he probably shouldn't have won it over Raul) but his game was on the slide maybe two years after that?

The move to Madrid didn't help but he was maybe 23 or 24 then and since then it's been a mad drop-off. To the extent that we've had maybe ten years of lol-Owen and only five or six of him being good. I can't work out whether he peaked too soon or never really peaked. We laugh at TWP but he's sustained a career somewhere near the top of the game for a lot longer than Owen ever did.

I still remember Owen getting injured in the 2006 World Cup, his eyes reflected no emotion whatsoever. It was creepy as fuck. He should never have played in that World Cup anyway but his career was basically one long zombie trudge downwards after that.

Am I right in thinking we took a crocked Owen and a crocked Rooney who both got re-crocked? And a 10-year old Walcott who never played?

Yeah we basically went to the World Cup with Peter Crouch as our only fit striker. We were that desperate for quality and people thought England could win the World Cup.

My thoughts on him was pretty much always that his first touch was dreadful but his pace meant that it didn't really matter because knocking the ball into space always an option since he got there first. Then as soon as injuries started he lost the pace, and it became evident that he couldn't actually control the ball very well.

On the other hand, still looked like a good goalmouth predator when he actually got a game. Unfortunately he never played in a side with the luxury of having someone that could only do that job.

otm

fowler not big, not that quick, exceptional striker, great feet, great player

owen incredible pace, timing, composure and very good touch xp aldo we obv disagree here

owen scored 118 goals in 216 games for liverpool. 40 in 89 for england, and yeah we all know post injuries he wasnt great but those are serious figures

Onimo otm

I think he had a great run from 1997-98 Liverpool until Madrid 2005 where he did well despite either not being used or not being used where he was most useful. He started ok with Newcastle but a couple of injuries killed his first season and he may as well have chucked it then, despite what it said in the brochure.

Has rooney outscored owen even yet? Playing as the tapin focal point in a league-challenging outfit?

By a long way, I'd guess

Owen: league games/goals = 360/163; total club games/goals = 480/222
best seasons 2001/02 and 2002/03 = 19 league goals, 28 total goals

Fowler (not counting Australia and Thailand): league games/goals = 391/166; total club games/goals = 515/230
best season 1995/96: 28 league goals, 36 total

Rooney 472/214 without spending seven seasons in the hamstrung wilderness suggests Owen>>>>>>>>>>>>>Rooney