Think of Michael Owen and you think first of speed. Speed of decision, speed of execution. The speed he showed that night in 1998 when he slipped through Argentina’s defence to score the goal that made his name. The sort of speed that bypasses the normal processes of decision and issues from a youthful instinct unhindered by fear, pain or doubt.
Owen has scored twice in Liverpool’s past five games, his first goals since October in a season disrupted by a troublesome thigh injury.
But the striker’s performance against Leeds on Sunday, under the gaze of England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, provided further evidence for concern about his form as his club approaches the season’s climax while his country looks ahead to the summer in Portugal.
At 24, Owen is not the player he was at 18 and it is a moot point whether six years at the top have added more to his game than they have taken away.
His goal two weeks ago against Portsmouth in the FA Cup was his 150th in 280 appearances for Liverpool. At his age there should be 150 more to come. On Sunday he might have added to that total from one or more of five chances that went begging through misfortune and a distinct lack of his once characteristic sharpness.
Understandably, this is not a point that Gérard Houllier is interested in debating. While expressing exhilaration and probably experiencing relief after a lively draw with Leeds, the Liverpool manager was concerned only to praise the contribution of his talismanic forward.
Dietmar Hamann and Harry Kewell combined to create the first opening for Owen after five minutes, only to see his weak side-foot shot turned behind for a corner. After 12 minutes Danny Murphy, picked out by Kewell, fed Owen for a shot blazed wildly over the bar.
Two minutes later Owen glanced Kewell’s cross wide of the far post. All this was before Kewell himself opened the scoring.
It was the chances that fell to Owen after the interval, however, and from which he could have won the game, which spoke most eloquently about the current state of his form.
Like his abject penalty in the replay against Portsmouth, the weak downward header with which he met Kewell’s cunning dink, and the powder-puff shot aimed at Paul Robinson when the Australian put him through on the left, said that here was a man whose reservoir of confidence has run dry.
‘It happens,†said Houllier when asked about Owen’s failure to trouble the scorers. ‘It happens to Thierry Henry sometimes.†Not in quite the same way. When Henry misses a chance, it is seldom through a lack of conviction. Nor does he ever look ponderous.
The older by 27 months, the Frenchman was slower to hit the full rhythm of his career. Promising as a teenage winger at AS Monaco, he was unable to establish himself with Juventus and could have been heading for the scrapheap when Arsène Wenger created a setting for his talent.
By contrast, Owen burst on the scene as a force of nature. At 18 all he needed was a consistent flow of passes hit behind defenders. He could guarantee to do the rest. Not any longer.
A course of weight training before the 2002 World Cup in an effort to strengthen his vulnerable hamstrings may be responsible for the dulling of his once blazing speed across the ground; his other qualities have yet to compensate for the forfeit of that priceless asset.
‘The good thing is that he gets himself into positions to score,†Houllier said, which is what managers always say when a striker isn’t striking.
‘Today he was a bit unlucky. He could have gone home with the match ball. But I was pleased with his performance. He can score goals, he can make goals, and he practically never gives the ball away. I was satisfied.â€
When Owen endured a goal drought after returning from Japan, there were suggestions that Houllier might consider selling him while his transfer value remained high. Now the boot is on the other foot, and Owen, whose contract ends in 2005, is considering his future.
Should Liverpool fail to qualify for the Champions League, however, he will need to be playing very much better than this to secure a move to the kind of environment in which he probably feels he belongs. —