Michael Owen, Who Cares; He Obviously Doesn't

Yeah, Michael Owen has made a great signing. Yeah, really, he has, hasn't he?

All the speculation over the past couple of weeks has been about Owen wanting to play first team football. This so that he can catch the eye of a certain Italian with an office at Lancaster Gate, London.

Has he done this or has he just made a move to help with his gambling and help pay for his love of horse racing?

I would say the latter.

By signing for Manchester United he has put himself firmly in the position of "Bench Warmer" for the famous Old Trafford club.

Okay, he may be thinking, that signing for Manchester United worked out well for Teddy Sherringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Sherringham signed as a veteran and Solskjaer who played a bit part at Old Trafford and both won Champion's League winners medals with the Red Devils.

The problem is that Owen for all his undoubted talents is way behind Berbatov and Rooney in the Manchester United Pecking order.

He is possibly even behind Frederico Machada and Danny Welbeck as well as anyone else that Sir Alex Ferguson signs before the summer transfer window closes. Ferguson is after all flush with a huge pile of cash after selling Christiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid.

Ah you say, all the top teams have huge schedules and they all rotate their teams to accommodate the needs of the team.

The problem for Owen is that to catch the eye of Fabio Capello he needs to be playing football. Whilst at Newcastle he hasn't played enough football or a good enough level, whether through injury of the poor quality of Newcastle's football.

He will get the level and quality of football at Manchester united but will he get the paying time he needs. Probably not, which leads to the problem of why he has actually signed for Manchester United?

It's all to do with money that's all. When Newcastle United fans were calling him mercenary because of his lack of interest and his huge weekly pay packet I was surprised but now I actually think they are right.