Michael Owen – England’s Missing Ingredient?
Following yet another national disappointment of the England squad, this time a distinctly average 2-2 draw against Switzerland at Wembley on Saturday afternoon, the nation of professionals, pundits and armchair experts alike are all asking the same question. How exactly do we win?
Well Mr Capello, Mr Lineker, Mr Smith from Leighton Buzzard, I have found the solution to all of your problems. The fact is simple. Goals are hard to come by if you’re an England player and finishing off teams when we really ought to be three or four in front by half time alone is a common symptom of our game at this level. With Darren Bent’s club form being first-rate, you believed he was the answer Mr Capello. Wrong again I am afraid Fabio.
When an ever developing, world class Jack Wilshere slotted a perfectly timed through ball into the path of an on rushing Darren Bent, the nation prayed. In the end Bent stumbled and fluffed a right footed strike straight at the Swiss goalkeeper. Two minutes later he was given a chance to redeem himself. Ashley Young’s fierce shot rebounded kindly off Diego Benaglio into Bent’s path who leant back and caressed the ball at least three foot over the crossbar.
For a striker who has scored 45 goals in the last two seasons for Sunderland and Aston Villa respectively, this is not what we expect. Granted he has scored 3 in 3 before this game for his country but are we convinced he is going to score every time he steps up? Bent’s counterpart in crime Jermaine Defoe has scored a respectable 8 goals for Tottenham this season and Peter Crouch has scored 11 but for England, other than Defoe’s hat-trick earlier this year against certainly inferior opposition, the Spurs pair have only managed to net on three different occasions. Certainly not concrete evidence that any of them have the right to lead the line along with a certain Wayne Rooney don’t you think?
I can’t help but notice a missing factor. A missing piece of the England jigsaw puzzle. Someone who is proven in international football and you have that “he’s going to score” feeling every time he has the ball in and around the opposition penalty area. His name is Michael Owen. Remember him? An England goal machine who at the age of just 32 has built up a grand total of 40 goals in 89 appearances for England, falling just nine short of Sir Bobby Charlton’s record. This season for Manchester United he has only played 17 times, 13 of which from the substitute bench for the last ten minutes of games, yet he still holds 5 goals to his name. Proof that the lad still has it. Owen is still as sharp and as clever as ever and has displayed this on a number of occasions this season in the little time he has had. I also challenge you to name one other English player, who one on one with the goalkeeper against Blackpool on the final day of the Premier League season, you would experience the sirens wailing in your head screaming “goal”, way before it had rattled the back of the net. On that day, he played just 20 minutes and it was him who crucially put the game to bed at 4-2.
Do you have that surety when Bent, Defoe, Crouch or any other English striker has beaten the offside trap? Or do you feel tense and nervous?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Michael Owen. England’s missing formula.
