How long and hard the fall from Europe’s elite must be for Michael Owen.

Just a few years ago, the former Balon d’Or winner was making his “dream move” to Madrid to become Florentino Perez’s last Galactico. Well, the last of his last set of galactico’s anyway. He was arguably (one of) the most feared striker(s) on the planet. Not only was he creative on the ball, but he also had the rare poacher’s mentality to be in the right place at the right time.

Unfortunately, none of Michael’s “brilliant” advisers thought that moving to a team that already featured an in-form Ronaldo and the undroppable Raúl was a bad idea. I’ll give him credit: in typical Michael Owen fashion, he produced when given the chance. But the move was still classified as a failure by media and fans alike, and somewhat understandably so. That ill-fated move to Madrid was the beginning of Owen’s downward spiral. The injury bug hit Owen hard, and continued to plague him through this season. His creative prowess in the past came from his pace, which he is now losing.

Now he wants to find a new Premeirship team. Which he should. He can still contribute to a mid-table team. And sadly, he has to put out a brochure to convince teams to sign him. What he and his representatives don’t seem to understand though, is nobody wants to pay £100,000 a week for a player that will play in maybe 40% of your games. Not only that, but no Big 4 team is even going to remotely consider paying that amount. Owen really needs to lower his expectations.

Simply put: his agents are morons. What they should try to do is market him as a £25-40k a week player, and base the rest of his contract on incentives. Example: £500,000 bonus per 8 starts, £50,000 bonus per goal, etc. I mean, Wigan is even laughing at signing him… and they NEED a player like Owen.

I’m hoping that Owen finds a team, I really do. But good god man, lower your standards and you’ll find yourself back in the Premiership.