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

Below is a summary of the full article. Click here for the full version from Metro or go back to LFC Live.

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 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.

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.”‘ Michael Owen Premier League stats Apps: 326 Goals: 150 Assists: 31 Owen would go on to spend four seasons at Newcastle but was badly hampered by injuries during his time there. 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.