Man of Glass sums up Newcastle career

In a candid, but kind of self delusion, interview today with The Journal, Michael Owen basically summarised his whole four years at Newcastle into four short paragraphs. In what seems like a scene from Holby City, with more injuries than the D-Day landings, our current number 10 runs through the catalogue of criminal crockery he has suffered in the Black and White. Owen said:

'There is no hiding from the fact that injuries have been the bane of my time at Newcastle. It is frustrating. However, and people will probably laugh, but I know I'm not injury-prone. If you look at my time at Newcastle, the problems started when Paul Robinson landed on my foot against Tottenham just after Christmas.

Loads of people get metatarsal injuries but they are normally not as bad as mine. Nobody's foot would not have broken in that situation. I then rushed my preparations for the World Cup. I played half a game for Newcastle. After being in plaster for so long, my leg was de-conditioned and with hindsight, I should never have gone to Germany with England.

It's easy to say that now, but if I had my time again, I would still have gone because it was a World Cup. I'm not thinking what could have been, but with hindsight, my leg was half as strong as it should have been. Muscles support limbs and I twisted my knee awkwardly and that was it. All that came from someone landing on my foot, so I don't think it's my fault.

The one thing I have got a history of is taking one or two games to get into my stride again, but we haven't got time for me to do that. Hopefully my eye is in straight away and I start knocking the goals in again immediately.'

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