Harsh,i know... But sad to say,it was just a matter of time to me. I was just waiting for the headline 'Owen sidelined for XX months due to XX injury'.
I guess i never really liked Owen or his style of play. To me,he's like a poor mans RVN.(especially the past 1-2 years)
He's to me what Berba is to the anti-Berba guys here

Any stats on his performance this season? Because he really seems average to me. Nothing spectacular about him anymore. He used to have crazy speed and ball control. But now without the pace,and being a small-built player,i really doubt his usefulness...

Whatever ever it is, he should not be our no.7...harsh, but thats the truth.

Not to me.  Of course wearing that number won't give you magical power or whatsoever, no. 7 is a special number for our club. Of course it's not written anywhere, but I'm sure you understand why.

Best -> Robson -> Cantona -> Beckham -> Ronaldo -> OWEN

Abit weird isn't it? I mean our no. 7 is actually our backup striker? Who would have thought that before Owen arrived?

hoho for some it may mean little but not to footballers.numbers play a significant part.or else we would have seen nba style numbering(retiring the number etc)

a lot comes from numbers, a passionate way for fans, writers alike to associate the success of a player.of course it could be the motivator for a player or otherwise.but what ever it may any player getting an important number will honour it, honour the shirt his wearing, and honour the team his playing.there is also the superstitious side to it to.so saying numbers mean nothing is just not quite right .weve seen numbers being moved around and players talking about it so it does MEAN some thing to every one.

owen world class is old story la.
now he is a good player ,nothing more nothing less.
the finishing is still there, but age has caught up wit him, injuries and all.
technically not that brilliant, that's y one of his greatest asset was his speed.
take tat away from him, and he's a much lesser player.
but then , wut more could u ask from him?
he didn cost anything, didn get to play much , but still contributed wit some important goals.
totally agree.
somehow i feel this thread has become only a thread to praise ur own players.
even stating an opinion on who to buy in the transfer market will get ridiculed.
since when did it become like this?

yep, none the less a legend attributed to the #7 itself in our folklore.

one that slipped away due to one of our own, and the rest of the other one...well next season then.gogo inter!!!!!!!

I dunno why...but I feel that Carrick might be on his way out. Unless he decides to let himself change his destiny like Nani did.

sheehs 1 bad season you all runnin g to the hills with carrick.if berba oso staying, im sure carrick will be here.unless we suddenly faced financial meltdown then he will be among the one to be cashed ngahahah

so whos next on the reform bandwagon??park??owen??the other owen? the list goes on........

ayo by meltdown i mean glazer banrupt ma, were in debt not meltdown, 2 diff things ma.anyway about our cl game, yeah it was full of incidents.with the ref, the way our player handled themselves(rafael mainly), their players on top of that but it wasnt to be our night.

but eh. seriously. Zlatan would be a good addition cum replacement to Berbatov.

He is teh shecks. But he's old la. ;_;

Yes, I do know Best also wear other number, but that doesn't change the fact whoever wear that number or whoever given that number is someone special, or at least a key player. Owen WAS not. And I did not criticize his performance because he does get enough playing time to be criticised. On the bolded part, are you being sarcastic? Because if you not, I have the same feeling. Nothing more than that. I am not critisizing him or wat.

No. 7 has always been someone special since Best.

I really hope he will. We need him to be fit and ready unless we buy another CM. At the moment, for CM with have Fletcher, Gibson, Hargreaves, Anderson and Scholes. Of all these, only Fletcher, Carrick and Scholes have proved themselves. Gibson needs more time, Hargreaves will never completely recover, Scholes will not play as many as before, and I dunno what to write about Anderson . Having said this, I think we have enough.

I never doubted the player he was la. Im saying now,he looks nothing more than an average player.

Was wondering earlier,who should fill in your CM role next season..?
I wish i can see Ando-Scholes/Carrick-Fletch...

and i wonder why manutd kalah to them at the 1st place.   

forget about the higuins, van der varts and all other names, coz there might be one "surprise/not surprise" signing very soon and remember you heard it here first.

wait for it lads and lasses.mwahahahaha on the cheap summore.

in almost six years as chief executive of Manchester United, David Gill has signed Wayne Rooney, sold Cristiano Ronaldo and been part of a club that has had to fight its corner against the new money brought to English football by the owners of Chelsea and Manchester City.

He was a key member of the United board that sold David Beckham in 2003 and signed Ruud van Nistelrooy, Juan Sebastian Veron (2001) and Rio Ferdinand (2002) for the best part of £80m.

They were the biggest-spending days of United's transfer history which, but for the intervention of Barcelona, would surely have included the signing of Ronaldinho in 2003.

Seven years on and the economics of the transfer market have changed.

United will not get into auctions with Russian oligarchs or Abu Dhabi oil billionaires and neither, says Gill, will they pay the hyper-inflated wages paid to the biggest players in Spain and even Italy.

With Sir Alex Ferguson, Gill has charted a new direction for United that he says will enable them to compete with the vast wealth of Sheikh Mansour and the seemingly limitless funds of Real Madrid.

United still have money for transfers — Gill is adamant that the Glazer family ownership has not changed that — but a significant part of football's landscape has changed.

On Thursday, Uefa introduced the ‘financial fair play’ regulations that will require clubs to break even by 2012. The era of a big money, record-breaking transfer every year at Old Trafford is over.

Already this season the club have committed around £20m to signing the 21-year-old Mexican Javier Hernandez; Fulham's England under-21 Chris Smalling and the Senegal international Mame Biram Diouf.

That is the way they intend to go from now on: a policy of more players like Ronaldo (£12.24m at the age of 18) and fewer like Dimitar Berbatovs (£30.75m at the age of 27).

Gill said: “The only player in his late 20s whom we signed for a lot of money was Berbatov and people forget we spent a lot of money on Ronaldo (pictured) who was 18 at the time.

“Players like Smalling and Hernandez — we try to identify all those with great, great potential. They become fantastic players but they are not the finished article. The other issue we have to face going forward is financial fair play with Uefa. That will have ramifications for squad sizes, we are bringing that into the Premier League next year (25 players, eight of which must be ‘homegrown’) and we are comfortable with that.

“It is wrong to say we are not in the market (at the high end) but Hernandez is coming in and we believe we can make him a fantastic player and his wage will go up. It is not like getting him when he is already a top, top star in that market. That's our philosophy.

“We are not going to do that (pay big fees for players in their late 20s). The other issue you face with certain players coming from overseas is the wages. We pay very good wages by English standards but we have never competed against the top Spanish wages or the top Italian wages. We are not going to do that. There is less chance of a top, top player coming from overseas.

“We are not out of the market. We pay excellent wages. But what you read (Zlatan) Ibrahimovic was earning — not that we are interested in him, but just to give you an example — we are not into that (reported to be around £170,000-a-week at Barcelona).

“When Ronaldo went to Real Madrid we made a lot of money out of it and he made a lot of money out of it. We have always had a sensible pay policy that ensures that we can attract and retain top players within the confines of what is good for Manchester United as a whole.”

Equally, however, United are not prepared to lose any of their established stars. When the question was put to Gill that Real Madrid would try to sign Rooney this summer, his immediate answer was short and to the point: “No chance”.

“He (Rooney) is on a contract (with two years remaining). I don't want to put timelines on it but I am sure we will sit down with Paul (Stretford, Rooney's agent) and draw up a new contract. He (Rooney) won't go there. He won't want to go there. There may be some noise around it. I don't care.

“In (comparison) David Beckham was clearly a lot older in terms of his career (when he moved to Madrid) and Cristiano had six years with us and he had wanted to move the previous year. There is nothing in Wayne's demeanour or Wayne's comments that he is anything other than very happy with us.

“As you can imagine, he is a big personality around the training ground. He has a young family now, his first son. He is very happy here. I get on well with Paul, he's fine. He is a sensible agent. He understands and you can negotiate with him. It's the ones who don't listen that you get problems with. He (Rooney) is a fantastic signing and he symbolises the club. Skill and work ethic all combined, like Ryan Giggs. He works his socks off. That's a Manchester United player. If you had to sum them up it is a combination of skill, work ethic, real guts and determination.”

Gill's expectation of the summer was that “some will leave, some will come in” and “there won't be any major players leaving”.

Whether the definition of “major” includes the out-of-favour Michael Carrick or Luis Anderson can be debated but Gill does not envisage the club selling Berbatov, who has not fulfilled the expectations of him when he joined from Tottenham.

Gill said: “He has three years left on his contract. It is two years plus an option for us. We spent a lot of money on him. We have no real desire to sell him. He will be there next season and Alex has been clear on that. He (Berbatov) gets a bit of a difficult press in some respects.”

It would not be Manchester United if there was not pause for thought about the future after a season in which Chelsea won the double and brought to an end three seasons of United dominating the Premier League.

But even with the green and gold protest gathering momentum and the funds available to Roberto Mancini at City, there is no panic. Gill said: “We have to have the best scouting, the best analysis and then compete for the players and make sure we can sell to them the benefit of coming to Manchester United: 76,000 every week, the history and heritage and the great players.”