Michael Owen interview: The football legend on Arsenal's rise, Liverpool's rebuild, Mo Salah and winning the Ballon d'Or
From teenage sensation and Ballon d’Or winner to a top football pundit, Michael Owen revisits his journey and weighs in on the Premier League, Liverpool’s rebuild, Arsenal’s rise, and how the role of the striker has changed
Michael Owen always had impeccable timing. On a dull Monday morning in Mumbai, he walks into the room-turned-studio of a luxury South Mumbai hotel, overlooking an expanse of the Arabian Sea, and kitted out with the Premier League trophy, right on time for the interview.
Bright and ready, sporting the same hair-cut he had since he burst onto the scene as a teenage prodigy. He is not a fashion icon or larger than life. Owen may not attract hordes of phone-toting casual football fans, but was a treat for the purists. Standing at 5’8, he took on the best and biggest defenders, on the ground and in the air, with his speed and smarts 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 engagement week, the 45-year-old sat down for a chat with Mint Lounge. Edited excerpts:
It is still early in the season, but what is your assessment of the Premier League going into this international break?
My predictions at the start of the season were, I thought Liverpool would retain the title, and I thought Arsenal were the challengers. Things changed so quickly. About one week ago, that was looking very good, and now, after three losses in three games for Liverpool, one in the Champions League and two in the League, and, all of a sudden, everybody goes into panic mode.
Or fans do, anyway. I'm sure Arnie Slot's not in panic mode. It's a long season.
What do you make of Liverpool this season? Especially with the new forwards Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak?
There's a lot more changes than I thought there would be at the start of the season. (Darwin) Nunez leaving, (Luis) Diaz leaving, and then the tragedy with Diogo Jota. All of a sudden, Liverpool were in a different position with their attacking options. I understand that they needed to go and try to bring a couple of new players in.
I've been so impressed so far with Ekitike. Isak is a wonderful player as well. Liverpool have signed two amazing players, that’s very exciting for the future. There’s a lot more signings across the pitch as well.
The hardest thing with so many signings is to gel straight away. If it was me, I would try to just bring one or two in at a time and just get some rhythm again, like last season, before you change everybody.
Does Arsenal (league leaders at the moment) pose the biggest threat?
Arsenal are just very efficient. They have been for a long time. If you continue posting numbers and stats like that, then your time will come. And their time might be this season.
They're built on a very, very good goalkeeper and defence. They've added some players—(Martin) Zubimendi, (Viktor) Gyokeres. I don't think they're going to set any records, but you just know that they're going to be very solid with a good points total.
How do you see Pep Guardiola engineering a turnaround for Manchester City?
They're a great team with a great manager. But I think they're third best.
He's always changed (tactics). A few years ago, one of the most famous changes was when his two full backs just started coming inside into midfield.
It was one of the biggest changes tactically in recent times and really made people think, wow, what's that? And now everybody does it. Everybody used to say Pep Guardiola used to just play out from the back and take lots of risks. But then sometimes they will get everybody back and then just go bang and hit one ball to (Erling) Haaland and he will be one-on-one and he would score goals.
Every time he comes up with something, people obviously adapt and change and try to jump on whatever he's doing and try to expose it. But then he's always got the next answer.
Going to the red half of Manchester, has Manchester United lost its aura in the last few years?
In terms of the club and the size of the club, then no, that's a huge club that will definitely bounce back.
But they've lost their fear factor, definitely. Teams are not scared of going to Old Trafford anymore. Manchester United have not been the Manchester United that we've all known for over ten years now. It's hard to believe (they are not winning) compared to when I was playing.
But I'm sure the generation before me felt it was hard to believe that Liverpool were so average in the 1990s. So, every great team has their ups and their downs. It's just whether it's going to be in two years or five years or ten years when they win a league again. At the moment it still 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 nowadays compared to 20 years ago, then I definitely think it's going towards more athletic capability. If you've got some skill as well, then that's a bonus. It used to be if you've got skill, then fantastic. And if you can run, wow. But now I think it's going towards more being athletic. Which I don't prefer.
What makes a great striker in today’s game?
The role of the striker is one of the biggest changes in recent times. If you watched me play, in my generation, virtually everybody had two strikers. I'm not sure who, maybe it was Jose Mourinho who brought in (Didier) Drogba and he played on his own (as a striker). That might have been the time of change. Everybody seems to have followed that since.
The general profile of a striker now is to be a bit bigger. It is for the wide players to cut inside and a left-footed player will play on the right and a right-footed player will play on the left.
And they cut inside and they're now responsible for scoring a lot more of the goals than they ever were. Wide players, if they scored eight goals in a season, that would be fantastic. Their main priority used to be to cross the ball for two centre-forwards, but that's totally changed now.
You burst onto the stage as a teenage prodigy. Did the pressure and expectations get the better of you?
Not expectation or pressure, but injuries. I relied a lot on my speed. That was one of my most potent weapons. But once I started getting injured and my speed started going, I had to then change my style of play to still try to stay a top player.
But obviously, when you've got such a strong weapon and then that gets taken away, now you're searching for something that you're not built to do or you've not practised doing all your life. I honed my skills around one thing and that was being fast. So, I had to change and that was probably the thing that made me alter as a player and become a little bit less effective later on in my career.
How does it feel to be the last English player to win the Ballon d'Or?
At the time, it was just a huge honour.
It still remains an amazing achievement. Looking back, you would expect one English player in those 25 years to have won it. We've been close. It's obviously a very difficult trophy to win and there's been some great 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've been hard done by. There's been great players over the years.
Of course, (Lionel) Messi and (Cristiano) Ronaldo had basically dominated the award for about 15 years. So, it's not been 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 certainly wasn't offended. I probably would have gone Vinicius Jr. last season, but again, it was fine. The thing with awards and when they're voted by, everybody has an opinion.
The hard thing for Salah is it feels like he's come so close so many times and the accumulation of how well he's done makes you feel like he deserves one. There's a long list of great players that have never won it. It's an incredible list and Mo Salah is certainly near the top of it. But he's still got time.
Deepti Patwardhan is an independent journalist based in Mumbai.
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