Is it just me?

Take his chances on Saturday for example. Ok, he missed the penalty. Any Liverpool fan with even a fleeting knowledge of the team will tell you that he has never been good at them. If you give Owen time to think, he won’t do as well as if it’s just an instinctive flick over the keeper or 10 yarder into the bottom corner. If they brought in a new rule where the ball had to be thrown at the penalty taker and he had to take it first time, St Mike would probably never miss one again. It is a testimony to the lad’s strength of character that he keeps stepping up.

But on Saturday he had three chances which said it all for me. The first he took down, flicked it over the defenders head and then curled in beautifully with the inside of his boot past the keeper. Sadly, it beat the post by the moist miniscule of margins. After that, he beats the off side trap, knocks it past the keeper with consummate ease, sets himself for the tap in to the empty net and is then taken from behind like a jailed tax accountant in Broadmoor. Then, after some neat work around the area by a number of players he is found about 12 yards out and he manages to belt an extremely difficult ball goal wards at 80mph only to see it rebound off the keeper who is running blindly back to the centre of his goal.

Take the Valencia game. We were a different team when he came on. Valencia has probably the best defence in European (the only ones who could genuinely make a case of being better is probably us) and Owen jinks through them as though they are not there. He is about to line up a shot and the last man obstructs him. Whether it was a penalty or not is debatable, but it was obstruction at the very least.

I feel we are about to see a goal of the season by our little legend and when (not if) he starts banging them in again I feel he is going to compliment our new attacking style to the tune of Alan Shearer figures from the Blackburn days.