Michael Owen retires: Striker leaves memories to savour

Owen, however, does not deserve to be remembered as one of England’s finest post-war strikers out of misplaced sentiment. The statistics speak eloquently on his behalf.

The final years may not have been what he wanted but to suggest Owen’s career has somehow been unfulfilled ignores his achievements and the golden moments he will leave behind.

Owen was so widely respected that he won the Ballon d’Or for Europe’s Footballer Of The Year in 2001, a sign of the esteem in which he was held in the world’s football community.

At Liverpool, aside from scoring 158 goals in 297 games, he will be remembered for almost single-handedly snatching the FA Cup away from a dominant Arsenal at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium with two goals in the last eight minutes as part of a season in which they also won the League Cup and Uefa Cup in 2001.

Owen’s cold-eyed, single-minded and ruthless approach to business meant he was never as close to the hearts of Liverpool’s fans as Toxteth-born Robbie Fowler, perhaps regarded more as one of their own, but he was a priceless asset in those successes under Gerard Houllier.

Some Liverpool supporters have never quite forgiven Owen for his subsequent career moves that have taken in Real Madrid, Newcastle United and – regarded as the ultimate betrayal – Manchester United, but many more will reflect on his contribution with affection and admiration.

In latter years, he was taunted at Anfield for missing out on Liverpool’s Champions League win in Istanbul in 2005 having left for Real Madrid the previous summer., external Few, however, suggested at the time that he was leaving a club likely to win the trophy in new manager Rafael Benitez’s first season.

The time in La Liga can also be framed as a success with 14 goals in 40 games, confirmation of Owen’s adaptability and ability to transfer his goalscoring knack to any stage.

Owen would have relished a return to Liverpool when his Madrid adventure ended after 12 months but the Merseyside club were understandably reluctant to match Newcastle United’s £17m offer, external for a player they sold for only £8m a year earlier. Owen, for his part, could not delay his move to Tyneside with a World Cup in Germany coming up in the following summer.

It was not disloyalty to Liverpool that sent Owen to Newcastle, simply a set of circumstances, and to suggest he did not put his total commitment into his time at St James’ Park is to misjudge his character.

Owen’s arrival to join the Toon Army was greeted with scenes bordering on hysteria but this was where his injury problems, which started back at Liverpool in the late 90s, began to take a heavy toll.

He suffered acute hamstring problems, the injury so feared by any player using pace as a primary weapon, and was then sidelined for a year when he sustained serious knee damage, external in the opening seconds of England’s World Cup game against Sweden in Cologne in June 2006.

Owen played only 79 games in four years at Newcastle, scoring a highly respectable 30 goals, and there was enough evidence to persuade Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson to give him a two-year deal in July 2009., external

The player’s management team had produced a 32-page glossy brochure advertising his talents to potential buyers but Ferguson trusted old instincts, his and Owen’s.

Again Owen’s injury problems limited him to 52 games and 17 goals in three seasons at United but once more he left something to remember him by, namely a trademark penalty-area swoop for an injury-time winner in a dramatic 4-3 derby win against Manchester City at Old Trafford, as well as a goal in the 2010 League Cup final victory against Aston Villa at Wembley.