To many followers of the game, this one included, it is doubtful whether Kenny Dalglish was ever really the man that Fenway Sports Group (FSG) wanted in the first instance given their penchant, and the sounds that came out of the club even before the departure of Hodgson, for appointing a younger coach. Theo Epstein, for instance, was just twenty-eight when FSG appointed him as General Manager for the Boston Red Sox. With this in mind, the appointment of Brendan Rodgers this past June was of little surprise given his ability to fit the profile that FSG appeared to set for hiring Dalglish’s successor. It is arguable now that approaching two years following their arrival, FSG now has a manager in place that they feel comfortable with.

However, tremors are ever so slightly beginning to be felt from the Kop. Only slight, but strong enough to take a reading. The sacking of Dalglish was always going to upset many connected to the club given the emotional bond he holds with the supporters but the subsequent search for his successor angered more given the manner in which it appeared to be conducted.

The office of the manager’s chair once graced by the likes of Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Dalglish himself seemed to be hawked around European managers as though some kind of transatlantic beauty parade only to be knocked back publicly by some of the incumbents themselves to the indignity of the Liverpool supporters. It is telling that Rodgers himself refused talks with the owners unless it became clear that he were not one of a dozen or so that were asked to take the stage to be judged via a score card. His eventual arrival was greeted with a sigh of relief that the apparent fiasco was finally over. However, the process did little to reassure onlookers that FSG are finally getting to grips with the game they knew little about at the outset.

Perhaps of more concern to Liverpool supporters should be that in appointing Rodgers, FSG second guessed themselves by going against their instincts in deciding against appointing a Director of Football to replace the also sacked Damien Commoli. Commoli’s appointment in the first instance, appointed on the recommendation of Billy Beane, he of ‘Moneyball’ fame and the Oakland A’s baseball team’s general manager, surprised many and did little to dispel doubts regarding the steep footballing learning curve that FSG faced.

Every media outlet reported during the search for Dalglish’s successor that his replacement would be more of a ‘Head Coach’ type without overall responsibility for player recruitment. That particular job would be divided between a technical board so that one man was not ultimately responsible. The idea is more at home on the continent than in England where managers traditionally have control of this aspect. However, it is widely believed that this is the route that FSG had decided to go down. Louis Van Gaal was reportedly on the verge of assuming the DOF position.

Ultimately, it appears that in appointing Rodgers, whom was reported as refusing to be a part of this, they have decided to stick to the traditional British manager model in order to get the man the wanted. It has been met with some scratching of heads in that conducting a search for a man to fit into the model they were creating they then decided to tear this up again at the first signs of dissension. Whether they should have followed their instincts remains to be seen but they have aroused scepticisms of being indecisive in this regard.

More pertinently for many, the new stadium, or the redevelopment of Anfield, is still no closer to being confirmed. Something few would have imagined back in October 2010. It can be appreciated that John Henry and co have obstacles to overcome before anything can be finalised but this is of scant consolation to supporters, not to mention the residents in the terribly run-down Anfield community, whom have waited for years for this project to get going. It is clear that FSG will not invest their own money for a new stadium. The estimated £300m cost of a 60,000 stadium will not make financial sense for an investment company to justify for what is essentially 15,000 extra seats on top of Anfield’s current capacity. Only with a naming rights partner could a new stadium become a reality and that search has not yet born fruit.

FSG found themselves in a similar situation with Fenway Park once they had purchased the Boston Red Sox and ultimately decided to renovate and stay put at the historic old baseball stadium. This could be duplicated at Anfield if FSG are able to navigate through a mountain of red tape and moral choices concerning the fate of the neighbours in the homes immediately outside of Anfield, the expansion of which would see the purchase and demolition of some homes whose owners may not want to move, as well as the consideration to the ‘right to light’ law that an expansion may deprive others of.

There are no easy decisions to make in regards to the stadium question but FSG should be seen as making progress in this regard rather than treading water. Hicks and Gillett came promising ‘a spade in the ground’ within sixty days but, like many others, this turned out to be a false promise. With this in mind, the new stadium, or the expansion of the current one, has turned into a symbol of trust for the owners. The supporters and local residents are sick and tired of being misled by 15 years of false dawns and of grand looking plans that cost millions to design and are then torn up and begun anew. FSG must become more transparent with up to date information unless they wish to arouse fresh suspicions upon their motives as owners.

By the same token, it would help their cause greatly if they became more of a visible presence at Anfield. To many, the club lacked clear leadership off the field last season and the owners appeared to be missing in action as the club swung from one crisis to another. FSG could argue, perhaps justifiably, that the boots on the ground in L4 let them down last season but they did themselves few favours by appearing detached at crucial moments of the season. The decision to fly back to Boston to catch the opening games of the Baseball season rather than attend the Hillsborough memorial service won them few friends. If FSG wish to maintain the goodwill that has generally accompanied them thus far than they need to take heed of how such gestures are interpreted within a city like Liverpool.

An owners interest in their club is generally judged by how active they have been in the transfer market but Liverpool have been strangely subdued this time around. FSG have invested large sums in previous transfer windows but the sums received from departing players has off-set that to a degree.

Supporters disappointed by a risible eighth place finish last time around are understandably concerned by the lack of activity taking place. The names mentioned as possibly incoming, such as Clint Dempsey and Joe Allen, are good players in their own right but few could argue that they are of a good enough upgrade on the existing squad to bump an underachieving squad to fourth place and the Champions League. Patience, something lacking at Anfield since an arguably unjust guillotine landed on Benitez’s neck in 2010, will perhaps have to be found again lest the pressure on FSG and by definition Brendan Rodgers becomes heated.

The talk of major players departures are disconcerting to some that view the club as on the precipice of slipping away into sleeping giant obscurity once and for all. The departure of an Agger or a Reina would not go down well at present. However, the longer the club stagnates on the pitch then the greater the risk of losing the key building blocks to any successful side. With this in mind, FSG must think big if it wants to convince supporters that they are ‘here to win’ as FSG’s Tom Werner had assured.

Few have played the transfer market worse than Liverpool over the past four years but Football, to almost paraphrase Gordon Gecko, never sleeps. Investment has to be continual lest a club wishes to fall behind in the running. For Liverpool, falling even more behind the front runners could be terminal for the ambitions they profess to hold. For the Fenway Sports Group, both on and off the pitch, this is the season that they must deliver.

That he has found himself sailing too close to the wind is something Andy Carroll has been accused of before but Brendan Rodgers recent comments has left the towering striker closer than walking the green mile to the precipice of the Anfield cliff.

Carroll, a striker seemingly reborn once the credits rolled on last season, could now find himself in great danger of having his yet still brief Liverpool career terminated just at the stage where, to many observers, he had begun to find his feet on Merseyside.

While it would take a Johnny Cochrane-inspired defence for anybody to argue that the player has been anything but an overall disappointment during his time at Liverpool, it would understandably frustrate the towering striker that the justification for his probable demise lies not in the poor form that he looked to have finally eradicated but rather one of conflicting footballing philosophies.

Once Rodgers long winded arrival at Anfield was eventually confirmed, any seasoned onlooker worth his salt could see the disparity between Rodgers, an ambitious young manager indoctrinated in the art of quick possession football, and Carroll, a physical, raw, target man whose mere presence on the pitch invites his team-mates to look to find him aerially.

With Fabio Borini now signed and delivered from AS Roma, a pacey number nine with a Pippo Inzaghi-style inspired eye for the back of the net, who looks to have all the attributes required to thrive not only alongside Luis Suarez but also within a Brendan Rodgers team, Carroll is now the proverbial elephant in the room.

The question of not merely where but how exactly Carroll could fit in within the framework of a fluid passing structure has seen him increasingly linked with a move away from the club. This question was put to the Liverpool manager just a few days ago. Rodgers responded: “Andy’s always going to be linked with clubs, whether he was here or not. I have spoken to him on his holidays and he knows exactly where he stands but I have had no enquiries about him.’ If the player was looking for a ringing endorsement of his immediate future then it was not to be worth forthcoming. When the question of a rumoured loan move arose, ‘It’s something I would have to look at, I have to be honest’ said Rodgers.

An exit from L4 would complete a desperately disappointing eighteen months for the Gateshead born striker. Signed on the back of a hugely encouraging initial six months in the Premier League for Newcastle, Carroll’s career stalled awkwardly once his home town club were obliged Liverpool’s still astonishing offer of £35 million pounds. Carroll came to symbolise a head scratching transfer philosophy for the then Liverpool regime. Suarez apart, their recruitment drive was focused purely upon the Premier League and young, promising British players in particular. However, the transfer negotiations were handled with all the skill of a tourist carrying a white flag into a Marrakech market place. The bloated, unrealistic, transfer fee’s paid for the likes of Carroll, Jordan Henderson and Stewart Downing and the subsequent public guffawing due to this did these players no favours at all.

While Downing is an experienced professional that has undergone several transfers already in his career, Henderson and Carroll were both twenty-one years old and moving away from their home-town for the first time. Certainly in Carroll’s case there has always been an underlying air of a player not feeling totally at home in Liverpool, perhaps because he was not entirely comfortable in making the move away. Carroll himself stated to the editor of a Newcastle fanzine, ‘I’m gutted to be leaving my home town club, I was told to go. I didn’t want to leave that’s why I signed a 5 year deal. I was pushed out of the door.’ In fairness to Newcastle, the incredulous, Championship Manager on acid, offer that Liverpool made is the type that just could not be ignored. Carroll found himself whisked away in owner Mike Ashley’s helicopter before he had scarcely blinked. Liverpool’s Damien Commoli, the negotiator extraordinaire, was to pay for such transactions with his job a little over a year later.

Injured upon arrival and then injured again quite soon after his return, Carroll offered a tantalising glimpse as to what he might bring to the table the following season with a storming performance and a brace of goals versus Manchester City. With this in mind, Liverpool supporters could have reasonably expected their fully-fit front man to hit the ground running come the new season and pay back a chunk of that transfer fee. Carroll, the most expensive British player of all time, barely got out of the starting blocks, taking until October to open his account for the new season. He appeared sluggish, unsure of what he should be doing within a side that was not obviously set up to play to his strengths. Each game that went by, each pass that was misplaced, each chance that was not taken, the jeers from the opposing supporters became louder and more gleeful. He and Luis Suarez played together as though only introduced to each other just before kick-off. Soon, Carroll’s confidence appeared to reach rock bottom and he began to find himself becoming increasingly familiar with the substitutes bench. His then-manager, Kenny Dalglish, repeatedly defended his star striker, but that support did not extend to an unbroken run of games in the starting eleven.

Ironically, the turning point in Carroll’s Liverpool career, at that point, was his return to St James Park in April. Subjected to a torturous seventy-nine minutes by a baying Newcastle crowd, a section of whom appeared to disregard the game almost entirely to focus upon jeering their former striker relentlessly, he found himself booked for diving before his final, crucifying, substitution. As he trudged off the field, he appeared close to tears before subjecting his manager and the away dugout to a volley of abuse as he stormed past them into the away team’s dressing room. If anybody required convincing that this was a player with too much on his shoulders then this particular afternoon confirmed it. Many expected it to be the seminal moment that marked the end of Carroll’s Liverpool career.

However, in the aftermath of this torrid afternoon, there was a subsequent noticeable improvement in Carroll’s form. It can be argued that the demonstration of the contempt, dare I say hatred, displayed by a vocal number of the Newcastle crowd dispelled any yearning the player may have still held for the comfort of his hometown team and the manner in which his sudden exit was conducted. Newcastle showed that they had moved on past Carroll, and Liverpool too for that matter, and the player himself appeared to have accepted that he had to move on too.

The player whom so much had been expected began to find his feet, though it was his forehead that once again did the talking. The last-gasp, bullet header, against Blackburn at Ewood Park to steal three points was a good start. The glancing header in the semi-final at Wembley versus Everton followed – a goal that guarantees him a place in Liverpool folklore whatever happens now. He wreaked havoc upon the Chelsea defence in the FA Cup final as well as the following league game. Rarely has John Terry appeared as flustered. If ever there was a player that did not want a season to end then it was Carroll. To complete the renaissance, a place in England’s Euro 2012 squad was secured and a thunderous header versus Sweden in the group stages followed. Carroll was a surprise inclusion in the squad, making the plane not due to the paltry four league goals he scored that season but purely down to his devastating form in the closing stages.

With this in mind, it is odd to some that the player Liverpool have spent eighteen months trying to coax out of a dark spell, akin to that of the one suffered by Theoden, the King of Rohan, in the Lord Of The Rings, perhaps with Grima masquerading as that £35 million pound cheque, and once he has awakened it looks as though he need not unpack his bags once he arrives back from his summer holidays in Brazil.

Nobody could argue that Carroll is an obvious, ready made fit, for the type of tactical system that Brendan Rodgers hopes to employ in his Liverpool side. Carroll, even on his best days, can still be somewhat ponderous on the ball and his movement is not in keeping with what Rodgers presumably expects from his forwards in a 4-4-3 formation. However, what Carroll does offer is something different. The dreaded term ‘Plan B’ is applied here.

For all the deserved plaudits that Swansea City received last season for the easy on the eye passing philosophy employed as newcomers to the Premier League, the stats show that while Swansea enjoyed a pass completion rate only just below that of the overall top five teams last year, the majority of their possession came outside of the final third. Taking an average percentage of completed passes in the final third, where risks have to be taken, Swansea do not feature nearly as favourably. Conversely, Liverpool under Dalglish was second highest in this regard but that more speaks volumes regarding the standard of finishing displayed at Anfield last season. This is not a slight on Swansea’s or Rodger’s achievements last year. As the club with the smallest transfer and wage budget in the division, it is realistic that a team bases it’s success upon a strong base of defensive resilience. That they did so while embracing overall control of the football is something to be admired.

However, what these stats do show us is that perhaps there is something to be said for having another option in the side or from the bench. There is nothing wrong if, when all else fails, a passing side can betray their philosophy by using an effective battering ram if a castle gates have yet to be breached. This is what Carroll can offer Rodgers and Liverpool. Swansea failed to score in fifteen of their thirty eight matches last season – more than any other side in the division. Clearly, with all due respect to Swansea, Rodgers will be working alongside a better standard of player overall so this particular stat is unlikely to be repeated next season but the argument still stands that there is nothing wrong in utilising another type of strength when required.

Carroll is destined to carry the £35 million transfer fee like an albatross around his neck for the rest of his career. It is doubtful that he will ever be able to justify it. Few footballers could. However, one must distinguish between the expectation of what we expect a player of that sum to display and see instead what he can actually offer. It’s true that Carroll is a player that has thrived upon good service, something even his detractors would admit he has rarely had at Anfield since the move. Yet, given the opportunity, he may well yet be able to adapt as well as offering something different to his team given the right situation. There will be times next season when Liverpool will look to somebody to offer this. Whether the pony-tailed forward will be that person is looking increasingly doubtful.

AC Milan, Fulham, and West Ham have been strongly linked with the striker recently. For Carroll, a change of scenery may just be beneficial but for Liverpool, they risk cashing their chips in at the wrong moment. Perhaps the rumoured loan only move can be seen as an insurance policy just in case the giant has been awakened. On the other hand, Liverpool could be seen as a home owner ready to move on, simply waiting for a good moment in the markets to allow them him to sell.

It will be interesting to watch what becomes of Carroll if, as looks likely, he does depart Anfield this summer. Few players have evoked such strong feelings both for and against amongst supporters in recent times. Carroll will likely always be a divisive figure for some, for many the dye has already been cast on him. He has been unfortunate in the timing of his probable Anfield demise and perhaps this would be the moment that some observers would note as Brendan Rodgers first mistake at Anfield. Whether that mistake returns to haunt Rodgers remains to be seen but it’s likely that Carroll will either soar high once again or sink even lower for, like always, there is no middle ground to be found when it comes to Andy Carroll.

As the players that participated in the latter stages of Euro 2012 lie on a beach in an exotic location somewhere and perhaps reflect upon a long, grueling campaign, many of their club colleagues have already returned to pre-season training ahead of a new season. The first week of pre-season training is year zero for many a footballer. For some it is the first chance to impress a new manager, for others it is an opportunity to display that they deserve to still have a future at a club. Spare a thought perhaps for those players that did not return to training this past week. These types of players are categorized by the dreaded term, ‘unattached.’

Examining the list of former Premier League players currently without employment, you will find somewhat of a mixed bag. There are those that decided not to extend their contracts with their previous clubs in the hope that something better comes along (see Rodallega, Hoilett and Figueroa) or conversely there are those whom their previous clubs deemed not worth having on the books any longer (see Bosingwa, Hargreaves and Saha). Generally speaking, there are few surprises on the list, mainly squad players that were half-expecting to be moved on as their contract expiry neared. However, one name in particular stands out from the others.

It is erstwhile unusual to see a former Ballon d’Or winner, or what is now known as the FIFA World Footballer of the year, within this category. But this is where Michael Owen now finds himself. As his former colleagues at Manchester United returned to pre-season training at Carrington training ground, a 32 year old Michael Owen sits at home in Cheshire perhaps wondering which direction his once illustrious career will now take him.

It is eleven years since Owen stood on the stage in Zurich and posed for photograph’s with the ‘golden ball.’ The winners in the years preceding included Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo and Rivaldo. Owen’s successors comprised Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Pavel Nedved. This was an illustrious group, an elite group of players destined to be remembered as legends of the modern era. It is inconceivable that the then 21 year old Owen would imagine finding himself atop the footballing scrapheap at the age of 32. However, that is precisely where Owen is now straying dangerously close to.

To examine how Owen reached this point, we must look back upon some of the

key moments and, more pertinently, some of the key decisions made during his career.

Within soccer circles, Owen’s precocious talent was noted long before his debut for Liverpool, as a baby faced seventeen years old, and the inevitable goal that followed. With the combination of searing pace and a finishing ability that belied his tender years, Owen was a footballing prodigy by the time of the 1998 World Cup and his famous wonder goal versus Argentina.

While, the date of that fabulous goal in St-Etienne will remain forever etched in England folklore, more acutely for his future career, the 12^th April 1999 is remembered for regrettable reasons. The hamstring tear whilst playing for Liverpool at Leeds United began a catalogue of hamstring injuries that ultimately robbed the young striker of the lightning pace that had struck fear into the hearts of any defence he preyed upon the shoulder of. He would never again be the striker that could drive at a defence and leave helpless opponents trailing in his wake.

However, it is arguable that in the season’s following the Leeds injury, Owen managed to develop his overall game even further. He continued to elude defenders with clever movement inside the penalty area while his uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time still remained and goals were plundered by the sack full for Liverpool and England. His finishing ability, once infamously questioned, by the then England manager Glenn Hoddle, and then resoundingly answered by the forward, would never desert him despite the travails that later followed.

An injury plagued 2003/2004 season would be critical for Owen’s career. As it turned out, it would be his last for Liverpool. An uneasy, often unspoken, relationship with the Kop was to finish bitterly come the end. During his time at the club, it would be fair to say that Owen did not enjoy the adulation of the Kop similar to that of Robbie Fowler for instance. Fowler was viewed by the Club’s supporters as one of them. Owen never was able to develop a similar bond with the Liverpool supporters. He was respected but perhaps not adored, not in the way he perhaps should have been. For many, Liverpool’s Michael Owen had morphed into England’s Michael Owen some time ago. It became widely felt that the national jersey was number one in his list of priorities.

This is perhaps doing the Owen a disservice. He performed admirably for the club during his time at Anfield and his goals record stood comparison with any of the striking greats that had bestowed the Anfield turf. However, the manner of his departure shortly after the appointment of Rafael Benitez in the summer of 2004 left a bitter taste in many a Kopite’s mouth. Owen had decided that he could not wait for Benitez to breathe new life into a faltering giant. He had allowed his contract to wind itself down to twelve months remaining meanwhile giving the impression of a man who was always just about to commit himself. However, once Real Madrid came calling, Owen decided to cut the cord.

At his unveiling, while Owen held aloft the famous white shirt alongside Alfredo Di Stefano, he must have wondered whether he had moved onto the next, even more successful, stage of his career. But it was not to be. Owen was to spend a solitary, forgettable, season at Real Madrid. Often confined to the bench, nevertheless he was able display on occasion the predatory instinct that had been harnessed for Liverpool and England. He finished his only season at the Bernabeu with only having been on the pitch at the beginning of the ninety minutes on fifteen occasions. Clearly this was not good enough for a man of his pedigree. Driven by the same competitive edge that had previously seen him casually toss away a medal from a his collection, a 2001 Worthington Cup final winners medal for Liverpool, due to the fact he watched the entirety from the substitutes bench, he remained determined to make his mark in the football world.  He was not to know it but the summer of 2005 was a pivotal moment in his still young career.

Twenty thousand people had arrived at St James Park to welcome their club record signing. The Newcastle supporters were well-known for their adulation of their star strikers. Jackie Milburn, Malcolm Macdonald and Alan Shearer could bear testament to that. For a man who had probably never received the love from supporters that his talent deserved, this could have been a match made in heaven. In truth, it got off to a rocky beginning. The transfer to Newcastle had raised many an eyebrow. Toiling at the wrong end of the Premiership table, St James Park did not appear an obvious destination for a man, by then homing in on becoming England’s record goals scorer, to arrive. Owen, with his place in the England starting eleven under threat following a season of collecting splinters in Madrid, went to the only club willing to match the Spaniard’s asking price alongside guaranteeing him a place in the starting eleven.

The beginning of his Newcastle career began, somewhat predictably, with an injury which kept him out until September. The tone was set for what proved to be an unsuccessful four years on Tyneside. A metatarsal injury sidelined him at Christmas until the end of the season. Owen returned just in time for England duty at the 2006 World Cup but suffered a sickening injury to his anterior cruciate ligament in the third group game versus Sweden which was to rule him out for a further nine months. By the time he returned for a few brief cameo appearances at the end of the following season, Owen was able to reflect back on a lost three years of his career including his time in Madrid. Owen, as well as Newcastle, was now on a downward spiral that ultimately ended, an injury filled two years later, with the humiliation of relegation and the release from his contract which had cost Newcastle a reported £110,000 a week for the four years in which Owen only made seventy-nine appearances. Typically for the player, he still found the net on thirty occasions.

In the summer of 2009 Owen found himself at a free agent, available at the behest of any top club that came calling. However none did, at least at first. Probably owing to his injury record, the top clubs did not pursue an interest in a man who just a few years prior could walk into almost any side in the world and not look out of place. Owen would need to prove himself once again. He had lost his England place with the arrival of Fabio Capello in 2007. He was marooned on 40 international goals, just nine shy of equalling Bobby Charlton’s long-standing record. The next move of his career would be critical for the player.

On the face of it, signing for the reigning champions can hardly be described as a negative thing and that is probably what spurred Owen on to signing a contract, arriving out of the blue, from Manchester United that summer. Owen is no fool, he would have known the risks involved in signing for a club where the competition for forward places was incredibly high. The alternatives were one of Stoke or Bolton and the promise of first team football that may or may not have brought his once brilliant career back on track.

Aside from his unerring finishing, the only other constant throughout his career has been his sense of self-belief. From a young age, Owen had grown accustomed to meeting every challenge his career presented to him. He had ousted every striker which threatened his crown at Liverpool and England. He believed he could do the same versus Raul and Ronaldo at Madrid. At Newcastle he was never fit enough to rise to any challenge. At Manchester United, he walked into training on the first day  believing that he still had it within him to become an established first-team star once more.

Then something strange happened. Owen appeared to slowly morph towards acceptance that his regular first-team days were over. His appearances dwindled, not helped by the usual injury jinx, season by season over the course of his three years spent under Alex Ferguson. His final season yielded just four appearances. He qualified for a Premier League winner’s medal in his second season but it was hardly a vintage one for him personally. Ten of his eleven appearances came from the bench. His contribution towards his medal earned him the type of scorn demonstrated by Shane Warne towards Paul Collingwood after the latter’s limited contribution towards the English’s Ashes 2005 success, ‘You got an MBE, right? For scoring seven at the Oval? That’s embarrassing.’ For many, Owen deserved to be within the same category. Watching on with enthusiasm from the sidelines, he was derided by others as becoming a glorified cheerleader. He remained unmoved by the criticism.

During his Manchester United years, the player himself addressed enough times the concerns that he was wasting away his talent by accepting his limited playing time, ‘’I knew when I came here that I wouldn’t play every game and it would be a bit different to what I was used to,’ he said. ‘But I will sacrifice playing every game for the

opportunity to play and train with the very top players and work under a top manager.’ Perhaps what is difficult for many to understand, this writer included, is how a player with Owen’s talent could choose to spend, perhaps the twilight years of his career, making more of a mark on Twitter as opposed to striving to return to what he did best. The burning competitive edge which caused him to toss away his winners medal for lack of a contribution in 2001 appears to have deserted him once and for all.

It is worth considering that at some point during his long injury lay-offs of recent years, Owen took stock of his career and considered that perhaps he was content with what he had already achieved. The Ballon d’Or, only the fifth Brit to win the award and the first since Kevin Keegan in 1977, was secured. A collection of medals, though perhaps not the major ones he must have craved, were on show within his display cabinet. He stands fifth on the list of all-time goal scorers for the national team, though he must wonder what could have been. His last international goal versus Russia took him within ten goals of the record at the age of twenty-seven. Fear, perhaps, is what is led to the decision to wait it out in the shadows at Old Trafford. A proud man, it is arguable that his experience at the wrong end of the table with Newcastle, where his once beaming smile and youthful exuberance was rarely displayed, convinced him to be content with only cameo appearances within a winning team at Old Trafford.

When his contract finished in June, it drew little reaction from within the sporting world. At just 32 years old, Michael Owen stands at a crossroads in his sporting life. Of course, football has not been the solitary passion for quite some time now. His successful stables, now comprising over one hundred horses, among them Brown Panther with a Royal Ascot victory under her owners belt, have led many to suspect whether Owen is now ready to move on from Football and over to Horse Racing full-time. The player, for he is still referred to as such for the time being, denies this, but with a catch, ‘If no one wanted me, I wouldn’t drop down the leagues,” he said. “I want to stay at the top level. I want to play on for a couple of years, but not at the expense of dropping down.’ If Owen is now content to play for a mid, more likely lower, level Premier League club then he might yet find somebody willing to take a punt on him. After all, there are few players available with a record like his, without commanding a hefty transfer fee.

Very few greats have left the sport on their own terms yet even fewer have exited with a whimper. Perhaps then, his legacy is still something yet to be determined. Owen, the once thoroughbred racehorse, is approaching the final fence of a distinguished career. The speed is not what it once was, the desire has been questioned, but the decision is now his alone. He could limp towards the finish line and be put out to pasture, remembered as a former great, or he may very well surprise us all and break into one final gallop to bring the curtain down upon an eventful trail that he plotted around the course. We await his next move with interest.

There is of course something to be said for the stubborn, almost futile, resistance in the face of overwhelming odds. It appeals to our sense of boyish adventure. We British like to look back on the likes of Dunkirk, Rorkes Drift or Captain Scott’s ill-fated journey to the South Pole with a nostalgic eye that all too often has been diverted away from the very reasons why such a last ditch, final stand was necessary in the first instance. Often it is because we have been found wanting immediately beforehand.

Take Rorkes Drift for example, glorified in the film Zulu. The garrison of 150 men defending their base against a sustained attack by up to 4,000 Zulu Warriors. Yet the preceding battle, the Battle of Isandlwana, a crushing defeat leaving 1300 dead, the worst in the British Army history against a technological inferior force, was quickly glossed over by the establishment back in Britain by the sterling defence of Rorkes Drift, a battle that earned its defenders an unprecedented eleven Victoria Crosses. The public had barely the time to digest the news of Isandlwana before the glory of Rorkes Drift broke and made heroes out of the British Army once more. Perceived glorious failure or near failure comes a close second to overall success in the public conscious.

Taking an admittedly gifted, but in no way vintage Italian team, all the way to penalties has been portrayed as something to be proud of. Roy Hodgson commented, “There were some heroic performances not only tonight but also in the previous three games…maybe it’s just fated at the moment that we don’t win on penalties.” It is true that the England team did work exceptionally hard to try and keep the Italians at bay but were more often than not left chasing shadows brought about by the colossal error by the manager in choosing to play with two strikers and leave the midfield two of Gerrard and Parker at the mercy of a narrow diamond of an Italian midfield consisting of four typically central midfielders including the imperious Andrea Pirlo who rarely must have enjoyed the freedom he was given to roam and dictate the game from a deep-lying position. By the end of the first-half, the pattern of the game was set and England’s manager was found wanting.

England’s great hope, Wayne Rooney, was a peripheral figure, detached from the play and carrying a look as though he knew that once more his contribution to a major tournament was proving to be negligible. He proved unwilling to close down Pirlo or perhaps, even more damningly for Hodgson, looked as though he did not possess the fitness to carry out this task. His forward partners, first Danny Welbeck who toiled for an hour to find space to provide an outlet, was withdrawn and replaced by Andy Carroll which only served to confirm that England were prepared to concede possession of the football to Italy and revert to a route-one way of playing. Carroll persevered, a sad lonely figure in the Italian half, but his colleagues were by now entrenched in their own half, no longer believing they had it within them to counter-punch the constant Italian jab.

The statistics are damning. Italy completed 815 passes to England’s 320. The most frequent passing combination was between the goalkeeper Joe Hart and Andy Carroll. Italy had twenty shots on target during the game – more than England managed over four tournament fixtures. England had an average of 39% possession during the tournament – their lowest in any tournament since 1980. Two particularly telling stats show that England blocked more shots on goal than that of any other side during the tournament and seventeen more than their closest rival Italy and they also made the most tackles in the tournament with Steven Gerrard making the most with 18.

These are typically English stats. They tell us that what the team lacked in technique, they attempted to make up for by sheer bloody hard work. These are also typically Roy Hodgson stats. Roy Hodgson teams work hard, they are defensively organized and they come to the table with a plan. However, Roy Hodgson teams usually do not win anything. In an age whereby Spain had shown themselves to be perhaps the greatest international side in history primarily by cherishing control of the ball, England have gone in the opposite direction by appointing a manager who’s philosophy is to allow the opposing team to have control and work a game-plan around spoiling them. Occasionally, it can bear fruit if the opposition has on off-day but typically this approach only get’s you so far especially in a tournament whereby you rely upon a small group of players to rally themselves every three or four days again and again to chase and to harry and to frustrate the opposition.

None more so had to work exceptionally hard than Gerrard and Parker. These are two players on the wrong side of thirty who ran themselves into the ground to protect their defence despite being outnumbered in the midfield area. This was the fourth time they were asked to do this in thirteen days and it proved too much even for them. Gerrard collapsing with cramp around the seventy minute mark while Parker was finally substituted, too exhausted to continue.

England’s performance in the previous three games is perhaps somewhat misleading by the tally of points gleamed by their efforts. Seven points out of a possible nine is nothing to be sniffed at. However, a stirring last twenty minutes against Sweden apart, the team were on the perpetual back-foot against all three of their opponents. The French team, lauded before the tournament for their unbeaten run, were exposed first by the Swedish and then by the Spanish as still being very much a work in progress with a soft underbelly. England’s tepid display against them appears worse than at first thought bearing in mind how the French faired following.  The Swedish, desperate for the three points after disappointing in their opening fixture against the Ukraine, were edged out by a moment of individual brilliance by Welbeck. Their urgency in having to win the game ultimately played straight into England and Theo Walcott’s counter attacking hands. They might yet feel hard done by after dominating the first three quarters of the game against the English. The Ukrainians were willing triers who dominated possession and displayed far more the attacking intent but were ultimately left wanting by a lack of quality in the final third and an assistant referee who somehow conspired to miss the ball crossing the English line right before his very eyes.

The general feeling amongst the public following their standard exit from a competition was that Roy Hodgson’s England had reached their potential during this tournament. This does not take into account that England’s starting eleven against the Italians had eight players whom had experienced winning the Premier League. They also had four starters with Champions League winner’s medals in their collections. The combined medal haul between the squad bore comparison to all of the other squads in the tournament sans Spain. These were undeniably good players who were poorly utilized once again by an England manager perhaps reaching his own potential by finding him himself in the knock-out phase.

That Roy Hodgson did not walk into his Wembley headquarters until May 1st appears to this writer to be the only redeeming quality of this campaign. It is true that a defensive shape and team spirit was fostered at a quick rate but these are typically reliable qualities of many an England team. Since the penalty shoot-out failure against the West Germans in Turin 1990, England has experienced elimination from major tournament via penalties on five more occasions. Each time we have walked away blaming anything other than ourselves. Admittedly, bad luck played a part in 1996 but in 1998, 2004 and 2006 we found pantomime villains to blame our misfortune upon. ‘The England team, they kept going despite the odds’ has become an accepted sound byte for overall failure.

Some have simplified it even more to explain that the English players simply lack the technique required to compete on this stage. There is undoubtedly some truth to this if we were to compare a large sample of English players against their counterparts in the Spanish or Italian leagues but when narrowed down to a squad of 23 this does not ring nearly as true. The truth is that English players have been competing very successfully in Europe against these same set of players in the other leagues from around the continent. Since 2005, England has had three teams win the Champions League whilst being losing finalists on 4 different occasions. If anything, this has been a golden age for English football. Are we to assume that International football is beyond essentially the same set of players?

England has produced some magnificent footballers over the years. What the national team has lacked, especially since 1990, is the right coach at the right time. Time and again, the decision makers have picked the wrong man. Sometimes they have picked the right one but at the wrong moment in their career. Few will remember Fabio Capello fondly but his record is the outstanding one across the six managers since 1994 showing a 66.7% win percentage across 42 games. The national team’s pitiful performance in the 2010 World Cup as well as the coach’s aloofness to the press has likely served to gloss over such an impressive record. Perhaps the more impressive record still is Sven-Goran Eriksson’s record of winning 59.7% of 67 games with just 10 losses to show. Both Capello and Eriksson were replaced by English coaches and their bloated salaries derided. On both occasions, the general public as well as large swathes of the press demanded an English manager replace them.  On both occasions the FA announced that their successors would be English before an appointment had even been made. On both occasions there had hardly been an improvement made on their predecessors although, admittedly, it is early days in regard to Roy Hodgson.

Where does this leave the national side going forward? Assuming nothing catastrophic occurs during a relatively routine qualification group then we will most likely see a very similar group of players and the same standard of tactics in Brazil in two years time. This writer fears that we will waste another two years before it is realized that the right coach with a modern progressive philosophy had been required and two years of potential progress will have been wasted. England will likely not be embarrassed in Brazil 2014 under Roy Hodgson and will more than likely get the dignified, perhaps even glorious exit that her peoples seem relaxed enough with. Like the British Army after Rorkes Drift, we may enjoy a victory against the odds that will blind many to our overall shortcomings. In the meanwhile we will run the risk of leaving the rest of the international world busy with laying the foundations to the success that will continue to elude us.