Heard an extremely doubtful story this morning that the Mancs were interested in signing Michael Owen before the start of next season. Actually, I'm not sure if this post should be in the Non Football section because of the number of games he hasn't played - I think it's something like 4 appearances in two years.

In a related story, Freddie Shepherd was complaining about the lack of compensation from the FA - "not so much as the price of an aspirin" - for Owen getting injured while on England duty. BBC story here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 495817.stm

Shephers is also saying he will take legal action to prevent Owen from playing for England until such time as the FA cough up. Owen himself has said he will be available for England whenever he is called up.

I am torn on what should happen in a situation like this. On one hand you can see a clear argument for the FSA picking up the wages and medical bills for a player injured on international duty but, on the other hand, if you extend this argument to the bigger picture it will simply lead to small countries not being able to take the risk of selecting their top players. Can you imagine of the Ghanaian FA hd to pick up Essien's wages for a year and top rate medical bills - they would be bankrupt.