Michael Owen‘s legacy at Liverpool has been tarnished by what came after his time at Anfield, and he’s admitted that he doesn’t feel “welcomed” when he returns.
Owen was a player born for the biggest of stages and he was a generational talent at Liverpool who burst onto the scene at just 17 as a product of the club’s academy.
He scored 158 goals for Liverpool over seven years and remains the only player from the club to win the Ballon d’Or, but his departure altered how he was perceived.
A return to the Premier League with Newcastle after his time with Real Madrid saw him jeered by some supporters, and that backlash intensified with his controversial move to Man United in 2009.
“I don’t feel as though I’m welcomed or loved and it bloody hurts, so I prefer to avoid it,” Owen recently told the Athletic of returning to Anfield in a sit down with the English press.
Referring to United as “we” only further tainted his Liverpool legacy, even if he had always harboured hopes of returning to the club.
“The moment I chose to go to Real Madrid I lost control of my career and what the perceptions of it are,” Owen explained, via The Telegraph.
“I don’t love going to Anfield now because I know I am not loved back. I tend to only go when I am working.
“It’s not that I dread going, but for a long time, I used to bury my head when driving back to the academy to see friends. I have told myself since I should not have been feeling like that.
“People say now: ‘It was because he signed for Manchester United.’ But the whole world knows there has been some history rewritten there.
“There was resentment directed at me before then when I played for Newcastle, even though I had a clause in my Newcastle contract that I could re-sign for Liverpool every summer.”
He added: “That one decision I made in 2004 has become defining in terms of my relationship with Liverpool.”
‘Ex-players acting like they’re the same status’
Owen then went on to insist he’s not “bitter” as he noted how some ex-Liverpool players return to the club and act like “they’re the same status” as the “real legends of the club.”
“If I go into the chairman’s lounge at Anfield, I’ll be honest, it does my head in sometimes,” he said.
“I will see Carra, Robbie [Fowler], [Sir] Kenny Dalglish and Steve Heighway – real legends of the club – and then you might see someone who hardly played acting like they’re the same status.
“The equivalent would be me going back to Real Madrid and behaving like I was a legend there.
“I played for them and I’m proud of it, but I would be embarrassed to swan around their president’s lounge with the Madrid greats of the past because I am not one of those.
“I’ve been reluctant to say this in the past because I assure you I am not bitter, but I will say it now.
“I have a lot of conversations with Carra and Stevie [Gerrard] where we have mentioned some players going back to Anfield and getting a standing ovation and thought to ourselves: ‘God, if the fans knew what they were really like’.”
