Michael Owen speaks out on Liverpool snub as he begged to return

Michael Owen remembers pleading with Liverpool to re-sign him after he left, but his former club would not take him back.

The ex-England striker came through the academy at Anfield and broke into the first team as a teenager, winning the Premier League Golden Boot in his first full season in 1997/98.

Real Madrid signed him in 2004 after he had scored 158 goals for Liverpool, but after just one season in Spain he was ready to return to England.

The 45-year-old says he only wanted to move back to Liverpool but the £16m Newcastle were offering for him was double what the Reds would pay.

He agreed to go to St James’ Park but continued to try and engineer a move back to Anfield over his entire time at Newcastle and even when he left the Magpies and signed for Manchester United in 2009.

Speaking to Mashable India, Owen explained: ‘When I left Real Madrid I had one team I was going to sign for and when that wasn’t allowed, when the president of Real Madrid said you can’t go to Liverpool because Newcastle have offered double the money. If Liverpool offer the same then you can go, but Liverpool were never going to do that.

‘I was speaking to the chairman, I was speaking to Rafa Benitez at the time, I was so close to going there until Newcastle doubled the money and almost forced Real Madrid to sell me to them.

I had some choices, I either stay at Real Madrid or I go to Newcastle. I decided to go to Newcastle.’

Owen says he even had it written into his Newcastle contract that he would be allowed to leave for Liverpool at the end of his first season, but his former side ended up not wanting to re-sign him.

‘The only reason I signed [for Newcastle] is so I could insert into the contract that after one year I can go to Liverpool, one team in the world. That’s all I wanted to do,’ he said.

‘So I had that. But nobody needs to know that. Nobody does know it. Nobody cares to know it. But they do care to say “Oh, you played for Liverpool, then you played for Manchester United, you know, you must have no loyalty.”

‘Like, come on. If you know the story. When I left Newcastle, I was on the phone to Brendan Rodgers, every single year I was on the phone to the Liverpool manager. It’s Liverpool that didn’t want me back.

‘[Luis] Suarez was there, [Fernando] Torres was there. And this is absolutely fine, this is football. I understand that, I don’t hold any grudges to Liverpool for not taking me back when I openly said “please take me, please take me” every single year. That’s life, that’s football.

‘In theory I could hold a grudge against Liverpool and say “you said you’d buy me back, we had an agreement you’d take me back and it never happened.”‘

Owen would go on to spend four seasons at Newcastle but was badly hampered by injuries during his time there.

He made just 79 appearances in all competitions, scoring 30 goals before making his surprise move to Manchester United.

Carragher pushed for Liverpool to bring Owen back

Reds legend Jamie Carragher has previously revealed that he tried to convinced Benitez to re-sign Owen when he left Newcastle and was about to join the Red Devils in 2009, but Liverpool had just signed David Ngog so chose not to.

‘Someone told me, I got wind of it and I phoned you straight away, you went “yeah I am signing in two days”,’ Carragher said to Owen on The Greatest Game.

‘I got in touch with Rafa, said “listen Owen is on a free and he is about to sign for Man United in two days. Whether you like him or not, do it to stump Man United.”

‘He is happy to sit on the bench, whatever. I think – you look at it now and I think we had just signed David Ngog and they were like “no we don’t want to do it, let it go”.’