Is Hughes the new Ardiles? Transfer Talk

Manchester City’s pursuit of Emmanuel Adebayor has me baffled. In collecting forwards like Panini stickers, Mark Hughes seems to be trying to recreate the gung-ho “you score four, we’ll score five” spirit of Spurs under Ossie Ardiles, and we all know where that ended up.

Hughes has already signed Carlos Tevez and Roque Santa Cruz this summer, adding to a front line that includes Robinho, Craig Bellamy and Shaun Wright-Phillips. It’s difficult to see what would be achieved by signing Adebayor, except ensuring an unhappy dressing room.

Hughes should pay more attention to his defence. While John Terry’s head has obviously been turned by the offer to earn a million pounds a minute at City, the Chelsea captain is likely to stay put. The saga has all the hallmarks of Steven Gerrard’s flirtation with Chelsea in 2005 and Frank Lampard’s near-move to Inter Milan last year. In both cases, the players were the winners, eventually lured into staying on vastly-improved contracts.

Without Terry, Hughes is left with Richard Dunne and Micah Richards, two players whose form dipped alarmingly over the course of last season. His other option is Nedum Onohua, a player whose partnership with Richards for the England under-21s yielded seven goals in the semifinal and final alone. Throw in Wayne Bridge and Pablo Zabaleta and it doesn’t look like a top-four defence, let alone a title-winning defence.

Meanwhile over at Anfield, Rafa Benitez is busy accusing Gareth Barry of greed while Xabi Alonso is openly courting a move to Real Madrid. This is a mess of the manager’s own making. Benitez spent the whole of last summer chasing Barry, only to be denied by Villa’s, not Barry’s, financial demands. He did his best to raise the cash by selling Alonso, thus souring his relationship with one of the club’s finest talents. Now with Barry sold to Man City and the under-appreciated Alonso looking to move on, Liverpool could be left with a hole in the heart of the team just when Manchester United appear to be leaving the door open for another Premier League side to claim their title.

How else can we read Sir Alex Ferguson’s declaration that his spending is over for the summer? It seems Fergie has accepted the need to build yet another great side and he’d rather wait a couple of years for the likes of Macheda and Welbeck to come good than spend over-the-odds for someone like Ribery. But make no mistake, the departures of Ronaldo and Tevez dramatically weaken the United squad and the signings of Valencia, Owen and Obertan don’t even go half way to replacing them.

So as United appear set for a season of transition, opportunity knocks for the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and even City. It could be one of the most open and exciting seasons in years.

Masterstroke or Madness? Michael Owen’s transfer to Manchester United could spell disaster for both sides.

It’s far too easy to get caught up in the romantic view of Sir Alex Ferguson’s move for Michael Owen. The biggest surprise of this summer’s transfer window is being widely portrayed as the coming-together of a great player and a great club at a perfect time for both sides. United need Owen and Owen needs United.

With Ronaldo and Tevez gone, Ferguson needed to revamp his attack. And with Real Madrid snapping up all his favoured options, thanks to the generosity of Spanish banks, Ferguson was required to cast his net far and wide.  But far from thinking outside the box, Ferguson has kept his focus firmly inside the penalty area, surprising everyone by taking a one-time predator, whose disastrous run of injuries have left him a faint shadow of the player voted Europe’s finest in 2001. In this bold and jaw-dropping move, Ferguson is risking not only ridicule but the likely surrender of the league title.

Ferguson clearly sees the signing as a coup. In the Scotsman’s wildest dreams, Owen rediscovers his pace and scoring touch, forges a formidable partnership with Wayne Rooney and helps lead United to an unprecedented fourth straight Premier League crown. Owen, after toiling in a Newcastle side bereft of creativity, clings to the hope that United’s flair players will be dishing up the kind of chances his used to take in his sleep. Both views are far detached from reality.

Michael Owen hasn’t just lost his pace, he is slow. Watching him cough and splutter his way through Newcastle’s fateful last few games of the season, when he was picked that is, was like watching a former Grand National winning race horse trotting the final few furlongs to finish last at Aintree.

United already have one immobile forward in Dimitar Berbatov, but what the Bulgarian lacks in pace and desire, he makes up for in guile, a notion backed up by the fact that he led last season’s Premier League assists table.

Two years ago, United’s attack was formidable, but its success was largely based on the combined pace and energy of Ronaldo, Tevez and Rooney. With Berbatov and Owen in the side, United will be taking much longer to get the ball from one end of the pitch to the other, allowing opponents crucial extra seconds to get back and regroup in defence.

It’s perfectly possible that Ferguson doesn’t intend to start Owen at all. Maybe he sees him as an impact player, a wise head to introduce from the bench who could just pop up unnoticed to grab a crucial goal here and there, much in the way that the Scot used Henrik Larsson during his brief, but successful, spell at Old Trafford. A clever ploy perhaps but it doesn’t go any way towards filling the gap left by Ronaldo or Tevez, a player who grew frustrated by his lack of chances at United but still made 51 appearances last season, contributing 15, often vital, and usually spectacular, goals.

And if Owen is to be a substitute, then in what possible way is this a good move for the player? After missing the best part of four seasons through injury, he finally has the chance to get fit, complete a full pre-season and establish himself again at the top level.

Owen’s only hope of forcing his way back into Fabio Capello’s thinking is by playing and scoring regularly. So surely a team like Aston Villa, where he’d be guaranteed a first-team place, and a chance to play Don Quijote to Emile Heskey’s Sancho Panza, would have been the ideal destination for the former Liverpool man. Villa are a young side, packed with creative talents like Ashley Young and James Milner, players young enough to have idolised Owen and eager to feed of his experience and game intelligence.

Owen may only be 29, but a crippling series of injuries mean this is likely to be the last significant move of his career. With regular football, a manager who knows how to use him, and a team of hungry servants, he could just have a swansong in him yet. But a move to the Theatre of Dreams is more likely to turn into a nightmare.