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The papers are obviously full of one story today. The news that Michael Owen is looking pretty certain to sign for us. The Sun sums up the general consensus of the papers well with this:

There was a time when United would just snap their fingers and a player would come running.

That time seems to be in the past. Now they seem to be banking on a veteran striker to lift the gloom.

As I argued here, we should see the Owen transfer as a good bit of a business for a possibly very good squad player, rather than in the context of the bigger and younger names we'll hopefully still be signing.

Speculation on the business side from The Sun:

United boss Alex Ferguson contacted Owen, 29, on Tuesday and offered him £50,000 a week to join the champions - plus huge bonuses depending on appearances and goals.

I prefer the figures in this report from The Mail:

It is believed Owen could be offered as little as £20,000 a week as a basic salary but with massive performance-related bonuses which could take him close to the £110,000 a week he was on at Newcastle.

If we imagine a figure somewhere between the 2 it still seems not a bad deal considering what we were willing to pay Tevez.

Sam Wallace in The Independent does the whole Man Utd ae down the pecking order of big clubs thing melodramatically:

But while it might be a great deal for Owen it tells United's fans where they stand in the new global order established by Real Madrid's frenzied summer spending. In 2001, when Owen was on his way to becoming the European Footballer of the Year, United bought Juan Sebastian Veron when the Argentine midfielder was arguably one of the most sought-after players in the world. Two years later they missed out on Ronaldinho who went on to be the best.

Now they are not even in the running for the likes of Kaka and Benzema, and on top of that their best player has finally got his way and walked out the door. So instead it is Owen, a good player once but hardly the man all of Europe wanted.

Saying this type of thing 3 days into the transfer seems just a touch premature. He's one player on a free transfer, which is not a big enough sample to justify such an attack on our position in the "new global order".
Louise Taylor on The Guardian blog has a bit of a look back at his career, which, while highlighting his ability to score goals despite everything, isn't something to read if you want to get excited about the signing. Although I thought this bit quite funny:

Unlike his Real compatriot Jonathan Woodgate, Owen made little effort to learn the language and one cameo is especially telling. Someone who knew him well revealed that Owen used to regularly drive from his Madrid hotel to the airport in order to buy English newspapers, never realising that, had he bothered to venture a few yards into the city, he could have bought the Daily Mail et al from numerous downtown kiosks. Such a lack of imagination left him far from suited to the expat life and a return to England the following summer came as no surprise.

Yet with Liverpool's Rafael Benítez unwilling to pay Real's £16m asking fee and Owen's £100,000-plus weekly wages, he was effectively forced into a shotgun marriage with Newcastle United and their then chairman, Freddy Shepherd. It was perhaps symbolic that on the day when thousands turned up at St James' Park to cheer his signing, his wife Louise was spotted near the entrance to the tunnel in floods of tears.

Tony Cascarino in The Times, surprisingly looks to the positive:

Part of his value to Sir Alex Ferguson is that he has played at the highest level with Real Madrid, and he won’t shirk the challenge of being a United player.

I think Sir Alex looks at some players and thinks: “Yes, he’s played at that club, and he’s played at that club, but can he play at United? Can he handle it?” With Owen, he will think: “Yes, he has played on the biggest European stage and got goals.” If you can get goals at Real, as a substitute or a starter, you can do it anywhere. And there are not too many available players out there who could do that.

There are no guarantees, but Fergie probably hopes that Michael can bring the extra experience and know how that Teddy Sheringham did. He knew that Teddy would rise to the challenge, that he had the required attitude and arrogance for that situation

He's not so good on the negatives, seeing it as a "reaction" to not getting Benzema, which I think it's safe to say it wasn't, and also worrying over where he'll fit in with Rooney, but as, I also think it's safe to assume, he'll be more of a squad player than a regular starter, I'm not sure that has much relevance.
Similarly, Matt Dickinson asks a question of no relevance to which the answer is no:

The intriguing question for United fans is whether Dimitar Berbatov, such a disappointment last season, would lose his place to a Rooney-Owen partnership.

And I would also argue that Berbatov's first season was in no way disappointing. He had a good first season.
Rory Smith in The Telegraph is the most optimistic, so I'll finish the Owen stories with this quote:

... Ferguson admired him then, and is canny enough to know that such talent does not just disappear.

True, he may only get 20 games out of Owen each season. But his record, even at Newcastle, is enough to suggest that he will still provide a dozen or so goals, more, perhaps, because Owen is not the sort of striker to "get something out of nothing," as Alan Shearer put it, a gift demanded of forwards at struggling sides but not likely to be required at United. Instead, he would simply have to convert the expert promptings of Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov.

If the move comes off, it would confirm that Ferguson will switch back to a 4-4-2, playing Owen off the bustling Englishman or the laconic Bulgarian as occasions demand. Owen would be in a role he understands, and with probably the only manager in the world who can save his career in his corner.

He will never be as quick as he once was – the knee trouble has seen to that – but he is still a supreme poacher, a man capable of shouldering some of the goalscoring burden placed on Berbatov and Rooney, as well as Federico Macheda and Danny Welbeck, by Ronaldo's departure. He is an expensive luxury, as Sam Allardyce observed.

Perhaps, then, Old Trafford is the only place for him, because United can certainly afford one.

Today I'm glad of a transfer rumour in the papers - The Mirror link us with Luis Fabiano:

Sevilla hitman Fabiano, top scorer with five goals in Brazil’s Confederations Cup triumph last month, is the new name in the frame – although United will have to see off AC Milan to land him.
The San Siro side have made an opening £13m bid even though his release clause values the 28-year-old at £55m.

Milan believe Fabiano, who has scored 47 goals in 105 games for Sevilla since joining them from Porto in 2005, is ready to leave Spain for a new challenge.

But United, with £64m still in the bank after recruiting Wigan’s Antonio Valencia to replace Cristiano Ronaldo, have the financial firepower to outbid the Italian giants.

Fabiano has formed a lethal partnership with former Spurs and West Ham striker Frederic Kanoute at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium while his international record now stands at 22 goals in just 31 appearances.

For once I'm not going to be pessimistic about a rumour, taking this as a sign that we're still in the market for top quality players.