When SFX decided to “park” their prized possession, Michael Owen, at St James’ Park way back in summer 2005, it was doubtless with some glee that they shook hands with one of the most gormless Chairmen even to grace a football club, and secured a legendarily bumper contract for Owen (and themselves), riddled with escape clauses that now leer menacingly at Freddie Shepherd.

Those of you prone to hangovers will be able to relate to the feeling. Because for Shepherd, when he looks back at those frantic days in the run up to transfer deadline day, it now must genuinely feel like the morning after a very heavy night before. You can imagine Freddie burying his head in his hands and cringing as, flashback after flashback, he slowly recalls various embarrassing moments from his drunken idiocy, and prays that nobody else saw him dancing naked down the Quayside with a traffic cone on his head…except, metaphorically speaking of course, we all did, didn’t we?

Snatching Owen from underneath Rafa’s nose must surely rank as one of the biggest transfer coups in Premiership history; but in reality it was a coup de grace that has subsequently become yet another inglorious Tyneside farce. As a love match, it has to be said that Michael Owen and Newcastle always seemed a bit of a strange one. That same summer Owen’s return from La Liga had been much vaunted by eager press hawks circling high above Anfield and Old Trafford. Indeed, Little Micky’s motivation in coming to Newcastle United has continued to vex the media and football fans alike, ever since he signed with us on 31st August 2005.

It was a transfer deal that promised so much, and yet that £16million has delivered so much less than we had all hoped and expected. His signing was an exercise in both vanity and desperation by a Chairman under pressure to secure season ticket revenues for the future, and a manager (Souness) keen to secure a successor to the talismanic Shearer. But as we all know, Owen’s time on Tyneside has been variously jinxed by recurrent injury, management turmoil, poor squad morale and woeful team management, and now with the transfer season just about in full swing, the same old questions return about Owen’s commitment to the club: would he ever really have wanted to come here (were it not for the money), or to put it more succinctly, wasn’t this always just a marriage of convenience?

Sven Goran Eriksson’s revelation that Owen only signed for the money has come to underpin this view, which is rapidly becoming the majority view of the Tyneside faithful. Whilst there is widespread appreciation of Owen as one of the Premiership’s crowning glories, a striker of unique talent, a likeable personality, one of football’s Mr Nice Guys, the great expectations of a long-frustrated Geordie public are now giving way to a brooding resentment towards “Little Mickey”, similar to that which echoed through the streets and pubs of Anfield the summer he left for Madrid.

A consistently fit and available Owen would and should have played something in the region of 97 competitive games for us by now, but the Newcastle United fans have seen him play just 14 times, and seen him hit the back of the net just 7 times (including a perfect hat-trick at Upton Park in December 2005). Not a bad goal per game ratio, admittedly…but at nearly £2.3million per goal or £1.1million per appearance, it’s not really good value by any measure. Admittedly, it’s pretty crude arithmetic (if you can even call it that), but on a rumoured £115,000 salary per week, Owen has latterly been seen by a section of the fan base as a rather costly mistake, a mercenary who is more interested in playing for England than for Newcastle United. It was solely the hubris of a deluded Chairman that brought him here on a contract that has persistently been the subject of rumour: supposed “get out” clauses of £13m, £12m, £11m, £9m. Nobody seems to know, but the foul stench remains, and now the general consensus is that Shepherd, in his desperation, more than likely did agree on any terms he could get Owen in on.

The media circus is in full flow now and frenzied speculation swirls around Owen’s future apace, spurred on by ill-advised and crass statements from the Chairman, like this one reported on 10th May: “Michael has two choices: he can come out and tell our fans that he is happy here; or I tell him none of the big four are interested. Because that’s the case.”

And what sort of choice did that leave Owen with anyway? Let me spell it out for you Freddie: Hobson’s choice. A typically crass choice of words from the corpulent Chairman, not least because it left him open to further criticism from fans fatigued by recent league performances, but more importantly, it betrayed that all is not well at SJP when it comes to Owen’s future.

To be brutally frank, we all know the power agents have these days, and if we’re realistic, there is little NUFC can do about it now. The question has been raised in the media, which is as sure a sign as any that Owen’s agents are agitating for a move. At 27, Owen has perhaps one more big money move left in him. Beyond this summer, his currency in the transfer market is likely to deplete, especially if his form suffers whilst Allardyce rebuilds around him. Indeed there remains significant doubt that Owen even wants to play now that Allardyce is at the helm, and doubt remains whether Allardyce can bridge that confidence gap and persuade Michael to stay.

Even now that Mike Ashley has galloped into town upon his colossal money steed, the silence from Owen in terms of publicly committing his future to Newcastle remains deafening. Maybe, just maybe, Little Mickey will decide to stay one more season. But that’s not good enough. We need to offer him a contract extension now, after all, what is there to lose in doing so? If he signs, then great, we’ve retained the services of one of England’s most prolific strikers for a few more years – and we must just keep our fingers crossed that he doesn’t wreck himself with another injury, I suppose. If he doesn’t sign, then we know where we stand and can move him along before he loses any more value in the transfer market.

Whether Owen stays or goes this summer is more down to the actions of one Tony Stevens of SFX than it is down to Shepherd or Allardyce. I still believe that if one of the “big four” comes a-calling this summer, waving the £9m or whatever that it will take to trigger the release clause, then he’ll be offski. Euro 2008 beckons next summer. Owen will rightly wish to be playing at a club where his talents can be fully utilised, rather than having to play a game of chance whilst Shepherd gives his last roll of the Allardyce to get things sorted.

Adopting a dispassionate view, there’s no good reason why Owen should want to stay at SJP when we’ve been in such disarray this past season. This is business – let’s get real. Would you want to stay and work for a place where the company’s customers booed and slagged you off on web forums? Is it Owen’s fault he’s on such a ludicrous salary? If you were surrounded by half-hearted prima donnas more interested in their next pay packet than the quality of their team work, would you stay?

All the while he was injured and working hard to get back playing from what could have been a career ending injury, he’s been faced with widespread unprofessionalism by various spoilt brats in the dressing room, and a manager who couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag let alone a concerted attack from a lower league side. When he did get back, he was left isolated and cut adrift for large periods of the few games he has played for us, simply because our midfield was all over the place, clueless and lacking in any direction.

So, maybe he does owe us “morally”…but, ultimately he’s got to think about his own wellbeing and his own career. This is business, for him there can be no room for sentiment - even though he has previously come out and expressed his guilt about his long periods of injury while he’s been here. But ask yourself this: to what extent were the club culpable for his injuries in the first place? Sure, we’ve laid down resources to help him recuperate, and he had a track record of getting crocked, but I can’t help wondering if our training regime played some small part in this sorry episode.

Of course, it would be nice to see him playing for Newcastle week in, week out, enjoying his football, scoring regularly, helping push us back up into the top 4. But even with Sam Allardyce in charge we have to be realistic - we’re miles adrift from being in that position just now and will probably be for some time. Allardyce will have to build a more workmanlike team to recover the ground we have lost in the past 3/4 seasons. Offloading Owen now, who seems to have been recruited on one mighty strange contract set-up, seems to be both an inevitability and increasingly desirable from a crude business perspective.