Michael Owen compares going back to Liverpool as a Man United player like ‘splitting up with your wife’

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It takes a brave man to play for both Liverpool and Manchester United during their career, but Michael Owen is one such player.

The former England international became a legend at Anfield after bursting onto the scene as an 18-year-old, but he risked the wrath of Reds supporters when signing for their biggest rivals later in his career.

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Doing just that means that he can never really enjoy going back to Anfield and that’s something that clearly still hurts.

“It has been painful going back to Anfield,” Owen said on Jamie Carragher’s The Greatest Game Podcast, cited by the Daily Mirror.

“Crying in the players’ lounge and hoping nobody sees. It has been torture for a long time.

“It is like splitting up with your wife. I can only blame myself, I said yes to Real Madrid. I still love Liverpool. Different to [Carragher], you are still at that club being idolised. I was you.

“And yet there is a polarised opinion because of me thinking I will go away for a year and all of a sudden it is all ruined.

“If I am walking along the Kop, they’re saying ‘you Manc’ or whatever and I have got to live with that. It has killed me for ages and the wound will never go.”

It’s often forgotten by the masses that footballers have feelings too, and Owen will clearly never get over the fact that he’ll no longer be accepted by those who used to idolise him from the Kop.

At the end of the day football is a job like any other, and it’s a decision which was made with the best of intentions.

It reflects less on Owen than it does on Liverpool’s fans if they can’t let bygones be bygones.

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