Moneyball won't win the Premiership 2012-13

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

Rooney: league games/goals: 339/156; total club games/goals = 472/214
best seasons 2009/10 and 2011/12 - 26/27 league goals, 34 total

the problem with making direct comparisons of the stats is it doesn't allow for quality of team/opposition or a bunch of other stuff. but i think those figures show Owen was a sight better than meh when he was on song

40 in 89 for england

an almost crouchian ratio, this.

rooney and owen with remarkably similar appearance and goal records, if wazza values symmetry at all he should retire at the end of the season too.

i think those figures show Owen was a sight better than meh when he was on song

A sight better than meh, yes, but not Ballon d'Or material.

Fowler never got much of an England look-in, is that purely down to being Shearer's contemporary?

I think a fully fit Owen playing for Man Utd for a decade would score a lot more than Rooney has.

Rooney's two 30+ goals seasons are notable for being outliers in his otherwise 15-20 a season career. Owen scored 23+ in five seasons out of six before things started going to shit.

Yeah Owen had ridiculous pace but so does Theo Walcott and a lot of other players who don't get near 20 goals a season, his finishing and awareness were exceptionally good. But the game changed and he didn't have enough other attributes to his game to compensate for that lack of pace.

Fowler never got much of an England look-in, is that purely down to being Shearer's contemporary?

Not just Shearer, there was also Sheringham who was very good at what he did, so both strikers' places were taken. Added to that you had Andy Cole, Les Ferdinand and Ian Wright at their peaks.

I know, it's kind of weird seeing that list then a decade later struggling to find four for a tourney

Andrew Cole, now there's a massively overrated goal poacher

Fowler never got much of an England look-in, is that purely down to being Shearer's contemporary?

Along with Collymore, Sheringham, Wright, Cole, Owen, Ferdinand and probably some others I've forgotten it really was an amazing crop of goalscorers England had at their disposal. So much so that no-one batted an eyelid when Hoddle cunted Sutton into touch.

xp what NB&S said

Cole was a brilliant player

Goal poachers are never overrated. They fulfil a niche function and they're very hard to find and feed properly.
They are invariably dismissed by anyone whose team they don't play for.

loads of countries were stacked with strikers in the 90s tbf, that were t'game in them days

all playing computer games now

Kosovo ruined everything

They're harder to come by now fewer teams play 4-4-2 and if you have one striker it's better to play one with a lot more to their game, so the very idea of them has gone out of fashion now. Even in teams that still play 4-4-2, you still see Danny Welbeck getting a lot more play that Javier Hernandez despite the latter being a much better goalscorer.

Cole's miss ratio felt tremendous at the time, plus Yorke must've developed a hunch from carrying him

The whole "needs five chances to score" thing was total bullshit. Andy Cole was an amazing finisher. Of course he missed sitters, as do all strikers who get themselves in great positions over and over again, including Shearer.

The whole thing about strikers being a dying breed is depressing. We'd better shift Hooper quick before the market disappears completely. I've noticed lately he's coming deep for the ball and scoring fewer goals, like he needs to convince people there's more to his game. I'd rather he stayed in selfish cunt mode tbh.

The whole "needs five chances to score" thing was total bullshit. Andy Cole was an amazing finisher.

Yeah, I think I said this to Dave Boyle on here many years ago. He had one shit season (his first full one at United, 95/96) where he kept snatching at chances and missing) and the whole reputation comes from that.

you might be right, a lot of the 90s is a blur, but i def remember at one time breathing a sigh of relief when the ball fell to Cole during dangerous passages of play

I reckon it's all down to the one game at West Ham, if he'd scored then he'd've got let off a bad run afterwards; whereas the bad run confirmed the hapless aura of that day.

Years Team Apps† (Gls)†
1989–1992 Arsenal 1 (0)
1991 → Fulham (loan) 13 (3)
1992–1993 Bristol City 41 (20)
1993–1995 Newcastle United 70 (55)

1995–2001	Manchester United	195	(93)
2001–2004	Blackburn 	83	(27)
2004–2005	Fulham	        31	(12)
2005–2006	Manchester City	22	(9)
2006–2007	Portsmouth	18	(3)
2007 → Birmingham City (loan)	5	(1)
2007–2008	Sunderland	7	(0)
2008	→ Burnley (loan)	13	(6)
2008	Nottingham Forest	10	(0)
Total		                509	 (229)

missed 1145 chances iirc

gah fucked that up