Once again, the ongoing saga concerning the finer points of Michael Owen’s Newcastle United contract has reared its ugly head again. The latest revelation declares that the ageing boy wonder will be up for grabs for just £6 million next summer, and could well move on for not much more than that come the January transfer period. Once again, the ongoing saga concerning the finer points of Michael Owen’s Newcastle United contract has reared its ugly head again. The latest revelation declares that the ageing boy wonder will be up for grabs for just £6 million next summer, and could well move on for not much more than that come the January transfer period.

Newcastle supporters must be tearing their hair out and blubbing themselves to sleep over the whole Owen fiasco. After signing a genuinely world class striker to replace Alan Shearer, they’ve seen Owen only slightly more often than they’ve seen Albert Luque on Tyneside. Now, as Owen stumbles towards some kind of fitness and form, the same fans learn that chances are he’ll be scarpering within the next few months.

It must be like being the owner of car which is rapidly depreciating in value but which you know you’ve rarely gone more than 25mph in. Inevitably you must sell it but you know that once you do, you’re almost guaranteed to see it zooming past you at top speed somewhere along a dual carriageway. Meanwhile, you’re reduced doing the school run in whatever the vehicular equivalent of Shola Ameobi is.

<<back to diary home