Michael Owen interview: Liverpool's rebuilding, Arsenal's rise and the balloon d'Or

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. Michael Owen interview: The Football Legend on Arsenal’s Rise, Liverpool’s rebuilding, Mo Salah and the Ballon d’Or of former Liverpool and English striker Michael Owen won. (Getty Images) Summary of Teenage Senses and Balloon D’Or winner to a top football expert, Michael Owen reviews his journey and weighs the Premier League, rebuilding Liverpool, Arsenal’s rise and how the role of striker Michael Owen always had blameless. On a dull Monday morning in Mumbai, he walked to the room turned through the room from a luxury hotel in South Mumbai, overlooking the Arabian Sea, and was traced with the Premier League trophy, just in time for the interview. Bright and ready, with the same haircut he has had since he burst out on the scene as a teenager. He is not a fashion icon or greater than life. Owen may not attract hordes of telephone -picking football lovers, but was a delicacy for the purists. When he stands at 5’8, he takes the best and biggest defenders, on the ground and in the air, with his speed and smart to become one of the best Strikers England (40 goals in 89 appearances) and Liverpool has ever produced. In Mumbai for Premier League India’s involvement week, the 45-year-old sat down for a chat with Mint Lounge. Edited excerpts: It’s still early in the season, but what is your assessment of the Premier League concerning this international break? My predictions at the beginning of the season were that I thought Liverpool would keep the title, and I thought Arsenal was the challengers. Things have changed so quickly. About a week ago, it looked very good, and now, after three losses in three games for Liverpool, one in the Champions League and two in the league, and suddenly everyone goes in panic mode. Or fans do this anyway. I’m sure Arnie lock is not in panic mode. It’s a long season. What are you making of Liverpool this season? Especially with the new forwards Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isaac? There are many more changes than I thought at the beginning of the season. (Darwin) Nunez leaves, (Luis) Diaz leaves, and then the tragedy with Diogo Jota. Suddenly Liverpool was in a different position with their attacking options. I understand that they had to try to bring in some new players. I have been so impressed with ecitical so far. Isaac is also a wonderful player. Liverpool has signed two incredible players, it is very exciting for the future. There are also many more signings across the field. The hardest thing with so many signings is to gel right away. If it was me, I would try to bring in just one or two at a time and just get rhythm again, like last season, before you all change. Check out the full image Michael Owen in Mumbai with the Premier League trophy. Does Arsenal (league leaders at the moment) set the biggest threat? Arsenal is just very effective. They have been a long time. If you continue to post numbers and statistics like them, your time will come. And their time could be this season. They are built on a very, very good goalkeeper and defense. They added a few players – (Martin) Zubimendi, (Viktor) Gyokeres. I don’t think they’re going to set up any records, but you just know that they will be very sturdy with good points total. How do you see Pep Guardiola engineering a turnaround for Manchester City? It’s a wonderful team with a wonderful driver. But I think they are the third best. He has always changed (tactics). A few years ago, one of the most famous changes was when his two full backs just started in midfield. It has been one of the biggest changes in recent times and has really made people think, wow what is it? And now everyone is doing it. Everyone said earlier that Pep Guardiola just plays from behind and takes a lot of risks. But then sometimes they all get back and then just go and hit one ball, and he will be one-on-one and he would score goals. Every time he comes up with something, people naturally adapt and change and try to jump on everything he does and try to expose it. But then he always gets the next answer. Have Manchester United go to the red half of Manchester over the past few years, has Manchester United lost his aura? As for the club and the size of the club, it is a big club that will definitely jump back. But they certainly lost their fear factor. Teams are no longer afraid to go to Old Trafford. Manchester United was not the Manchester United we have known for over ten years now. It’s hard to believe (they don’t win) compared to when I played. But I am sure that the generation felt like it was difficult to believe that Liverpool was so average in the 1990s. So, every wonderful team has their ups and their downs. It’s just as if it’s going to be in two years or five years or ten years when they win a league again. Right now it looks a long way away. Has speed and physicality become more important than skill in today’s football? If you look at the profile of a player these days compared to 20 years ago, I definitely think it’s going to more athletic ability. If you also have some skill, then it’s a bonus. It was earlier if your skill, then fantastic. And if you can run, wow. But now I think it’s more athletic. Which I don’t prefer. What makes a wonderful striker in today’s game? The role of the striker is one of the biggest changes in recent times. If you see me playing in my generation, almost all of them had two strikers. I’m not sure who, maybe it was Jose Mourinho who brought in Drogba (Didier) Drogba and he played on his own (as a striker). It was perhaps the time of change. It seems that everyone has followed it since then. The general profile of a striker is now a little larger. It is for the broad players to cut inside and a left foot player will play on the right and a right foot player will play on the left. And they have cut inside and they are now responsible for achieving much more of the goals than they ever were. Wide players, if they scored eight goals in a season, it would be fantastic. Their most important priority was to advance the ball for two centers, but that has now changed completely. Look at the full Beeld Michael Owen was one of the most feared strikers in world football and won the balloon d’Or in 2001. (Getty Images) you burst on stage as a teenager. Did the pressure and expectations you get better? Not expectation or pressure, but injuries. I relied a lot on my speed. It was one of my most powerful weapons. But once I injured and started my speed, I had to change my style of play to still try to stay a top player. But of course, if you have such a strong weapon and are taken away, you are now looking for something you have not built, or that you have not practiced all your life. I sharpened my skills around one thing and it was fast. So, I had to change, and that was probably the thing that made me change as a player and became a little less effective later in my career. How does it feel to be the last English player to win the Balloon D’or? It was just a great honor at the time. It still remains an incredible achievement. If you look back, you would expect one English player to win it in those 25 years. We were close. Of course, this is a very difficult trophy to win and there have been some wonderful players in the past. So, I don’t look at English players and think, oh, we deserve to have, we should have won it, or we were done hard. There have been big players over the years. Of course, (Lionel) Messi and (Cristiano) Ronaldo basically dominated the award for about 15 years. So it was not an easy time to win it over our generation. Should Mo Salah have won the award this time? I thought (Ousmane) Dembele was a fair winner this season. Last season, Rodri won it. I was definitely not offended. I would probably be Vinicius jr. Went, but it was good again. The thing with awards and when voted all have an opinion. The difficult thing for Salah is that it feels like he has come so close so many times and that the accumulation of how well he was done makes you feel like he deserves one. There is a long list of wonderful players who have never won it. This is an incredible list and Mo Salah is definitely close to the top of it. But he still has time. Deepti Patwardhan is an independent journalist in Mumbai. Catch all the business news, market news, news reports and latest news updates on Live Mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. More Topics #Features Read Next Story