Michael Owen wants to go home. Real Madrid want him to go home. Newcastle simply want him and have offered a club record £16-million to end their Premiership drought. And in World Cup year, England’s leading goal-scorer finds himself in limbo.
Tuesday night was something of a triumph for Manchester United and their new treble-Glazered outlook — not just because the team beat Hungarian hopefuls Debrecen 3-0 at Old Trafford to just about ensure a record 10th successive entry in to the group stages of the Champions League.
The 24-year-old Steve Gerrard ”has become a Dr Doolittle character: you remember, the two-headed llama, neatly tagged ‘push-me-pull-you”’, writes Neal Collins about Gerrard’s convoluted transfer saga. ”At one end, his agent … and the giant SFC corporation, at the other the club.”
The Quinton Fortune saga is about to take another fascinating turn: Newcastle’s grumpy Graeme Souness is reported to be after the 27-year-old and is prepared to pay £2-million for Manchester United’s South African midfielder. There’s also talk of a swap deal involving Newcastle goalkeeper Shay Given.
Ah, the English summer. It lasts about three weeks; once-fashionable men wear sandals with socks, once-beautiful women whip off their tops and once-popular football drops off the back pages. It’s the silly season. But it’s the football stories that really stretch your imagination. The big one? Luis Figo is might go to Newcastle.
It’s going to be the strangest Champions League defence of all time — and the longest. After their sensational triumph over Milan in Istanbul less than a month ago, Liverpool have already been embroiled in a lengthy battle just to be allowed to defend their crown in the traditional (and, indeed, regulation) manner.
You’ll have to forgive Manchester United fans for looking a little Glazed over in the build-up to the showpiece FA Cup final against Arsenal at Cardiff’s magnificent Millennium stadium. The world’s oldest knock-out final has been overshadowed by Malcolm Glazer, a 78-year-old American watchmaker.
Neal Collins writes why Crystal Palace, Norwich, Southampton and West Brom deserve to stay up, heading towards the final day of the season with no club officially relegated for the first time since the Premiership started in 1992. And there are plenty more reasons to be hopeful, he says.
All eyes will be on Bolton in Lancashire on Saturday. That’s when Chelsea’s 50-year championship drought is scheduled to come to an emphatic end. Sam Allardyce’s Wanderers will do all they can to poop the party but let’s be frank— Frank Lampard for that matter — even defeat at Bolton isn’t going to stop the Jose Mourinho express.
For once none of the FA Cup semifinalists, queuing up somewhere down the westbound M4 to Cardiff as I write, is on for a double. Ever since Chelsea fell to Newcastle on the night the great Jose Mourinho lost count of his substitutes, the Premiership leaders have been out of this particular race.