Negative Zone

You might have thought that our coverage in the papers might be full of positives, what with our last game being a comprehensive victory over our arch-(not really rivalling anymore)rivals, and us being top of the league with 100% record and having already beaten two of the "big 4." Of course, this being Man Utd, that isn't the case and today we have remorseless negativity.  The Mail has 4 stories, yes, FOUR, stories about the the Leeds game.  None of them are football related, they all just pointlessly moralise over the chanting on Tuesday night.  I'm not condoning, or trying to paper over it, but come on, 4 articles?  If any of them said anything remotely interesting or worthwhile then maybe it'd be alright, but they all just say the same thing chanting nasty things is nasty.  O rly?  I'm sure there's a lot of Mail readers out there who disagree and need 4 articles to make them see the error of their ways.  I'm not linking to them, imagine the usual Mail moralistic bullshit if you really want to know what's in them.

And, as if that's not bad enough, Michael Owen gets a fair bit of stick today.  Apparently scoring 2 goals is some sort of crime against humanity.  Sorry, it's playing for us that's the crime.  Another Owen scored for City last night, playing his first 57 minutes for 3 centuries, and he's immediately given an England place.  Steven Gerrard returns and the journalists wet themselves with excitement rather than point out he's past it.  Michael Owen scores two and it's "how can he just sit on the bench, how can he take money, his careers so over."

The usually reliable Daniel Taylor in The Guardian writes a proper crock of shit today:

On the face of it, there is nothing particularly unusual about seeing a once-feared striker who has reached the point when he will admit he is in decline. Football is littered with men who reach their 30s and can understand what the old baseball pitcher Vernon Gomez meant when he talked of "throwing the ball just as hard as I ever did – it's just not getting there as fast".

For Owen, once reliant on speed and having been afflicted by long-term injuries, it is probably only inevitable that, at 31, there was so much surprise when United offered him another contract at the end of last season. The curiosity of Owen's story, however, is that he would rather stay in the background at Old Trafford than play regularly at another club, and has been quite happy to advertise it, saying: "I prefer playing less often in a top team than every game in a poor team. I've been there and didn't enjoy it."

What I think is worse is just treading water at a smaller club, picking up a bigger pay packet but not really testing yourself, not trying to prove yourself at the top level.  A bit like Alan Shearer preferring to be the big shot at Newcastle than test himself amongst the world's best by joining us (thank god he never...).  And the bit about being past his best.  This is self-evident, but the timing, straight after he scores two goals, seems nothing but pointless and spiteful.  He then quotes two amazing sources; first, a Liverpool paper, who slag him off, then, the stupidest thing ever, Taylor quotes someone off Twitter, someone tweeting Michael Owen, slagging him off on Twitter.  A nutjob on Twitter is now fair game to be a representative opinion in The Guardian.  What has the world come to?

Mark Ogden in The Telegraph frames some quotes from Owen in similar negative language.  Owen himself is realistic:

“I have got a few years left and I would love them to be at Manchester United,” he said. “But for that to happen, I would need to be involved because the manager would not want me if I was not part of the squad or part of things.

"I train every day, try to get sharp and, of course, I want to play as much as I can. That has not been possible so far this season but we have played one game a week for the last four weeks. All of a sudden we are getting two games a week so this is really where the season starts for a lot of players.

James Lawton expresses sorrow that Michael Owen, "settled for less," playing for Man Utd settling for less?  Really James?  Staying at Newcastle would have shown quite the ambition...  As I said before, the occasion of Owen scoring two goals is the excuse for writing his obituary?  It's a strange world.