Michael Owen: I'm Fit & Ready for United & England Return

Manchester United will have no shortage of strikers next season. Wayne Rooney, Javier Hernandez and Dimitar Berbatov will be ready and raring to go as well as those young strikers returning from loan deals; Danny Welbeck, Kiko Macheda and Mame Biram Diouf. One striker whose future is still yet to be decided is a man who Sir Alex Ferguson has described him as "world class", with "absolutely superb" positional play, first touch and finishing.

Surely then, with those qualities, Michael Owen would have no problem in getting into the United side. On the contrary, because of a mixture of both injuries and bad luck, his appearances for United have been limited.

11 appearances this season due to the hamstring injury he suffered during last years Carling Cup final and other unfortunate injuries has seen him score four goals. Despite criticism of being "injury plagued", last season saw a fantastic return from the then 30 year old - 31 appearances and 9 crucial goals.
His last game for England was in 2008 which was incidentally his only appearance under the management of Fabio Capello. 89 appearances and 40 goals for his country however tell a different story.

The new man to Twitter spent today clearing a few things up on the micro-blogging site:

"By the way, to answer a common question: I'm fit. I was on the side of the pitch about to come on last week [against Bolton] until Jonny Evans got sent off."

He also congratulated Gareth Barry on the news that the Manchester City midfielder would captain England on Tuesday against Ghana. He also joked about his England situation:

"Congrats to Gareth Barry, great honour for him. Quite a few dropped out of squad, Mr Capello must be making room for me to return!!!!!!!!!!!" 

In response to some obviously derogatory responses to that Tweet, Owen followed up with this:

"I knew that joke would get a few of you taking the p*** out of me! You certainly need thick skin to play this Tweeting game."

Follow Michael on Twitter @themichaelowen 

Nani Speaks About Carragher Tackle & Why he Cried

Nani has spoken. The Manchester United winger was the victim of a horrendous challenge from Jamie Carragher at Anfield when United met Liverpool. The incident was well publicised and overshadowed the Liverpool win in which United were outplayed. Rivals fans to United questioned the seriousness of the injury and suggested that United fans were using the tackle to cover up a poor performance.

Whatever the case, there is no denying that the tackle warranted a red card, and as Nani says here, his tears immediately after the tackle came as a result of him believing his season was over. The deep gash on his shin was clear for all to see, but Nani was still criticized for shedding tears. The recently returned Portuguese said:

“When I saw my leg for the first time, I thought my season was finished. That is why I was crying.

"Afterwards, the doctor saw my leg and said I had been lucky because it just needed stitches and I would be out for two or three weeks. He is surprised that I could recover even quicker.”

Nani was slightly hesitant in taking on the left back on his return to action after the injury against Marseille, but he recognises that the physical side is to be expected in the English Premier League:

"English football is like that. It is about making tackles.

“The fans enjoy it. I always finish the game sore because I have had three or four tackles on the same part of my ankle.”

However, despite accepting the physical side of the game, he agrees with most logical football fans when he says the Carragher tackle should not be accepted. Nani said:

"I don’t know what Carragher was thinking but I do know what he did was not football.”

 “He came to apologise after the game. But I was not happy. It is the second time he injured me. Before, he put me out of the game for two months. He always tackles like that. I don’t want protection. I just want the referees to be fair. If it is a red card, they have to give it. If they give the card, the next time the player doesn’t make the tackle.”

Rumours have arisen recently stating that Nani has asked his agent to look for clubs in Italy for a possible transfer. This was however dismissed by the 24 year-old who said on his official Twitter account that he had "seen some false reports on the press. I want you to know that you will hear the truth from me. Love MU".

So we will be seeing a lot more of Nani in the future then. Perhaps no the immediate future though, with him admitting to being a doubt for the Old Trafford clash with Bolton this Saturday:

"I played against Marseille but maybe I couldn't play tomorrow because I have so many injuries. My leg is OK [but] it is not 100% and the confidence is not the same.

"I know players always like to tackle me, so I have to be careful. That is why my football was not the best. But it is great to be back. Now I am just thinking about the next game when I think I will be much better."

Nani Injury: Not How big the Cut is, its Where it was

Luis Nani's leg has been the most debated subject in football this weekend. Why wasn't it a red card? Is his injury that bad? Why did he get up and complain? Are the pictures photo shopped? Should Nani have been booked for diving?

Well, I'm sure someone has said the last one, but the fact is, a lot of people are missing the point. I have seen so many comments saying how Nani was pathetic to cry while others would have got up and carried on playing. This is a comment on one website showing the image of Nani's leg:

"I’ve fractured my leg before


I’ve dislocated my shoulder before


I’ve dislocated my elbow and broke my arm before


I’ve not cried in all of them"

I mean - come on. Who cares? This isn't about crying or not crying, this is about the scandalous decision not to send Jamie Carragher off for a blatant assault on Nani. It was a disgrace of a tackle, so sickening, so dangerous that no matter which way you look at it, tears or no tears, a red should have been shown. The fact that Carragher received only a yellow for the tackle, while Edwin van der sar received the same punishment for simply expressing his understandable exasperation at the decision is a joke.

I cannot understand how people can attempt to excuse it, or even play down the injury which some claim to be photo shopped. Again, it does not matter how deep the wound is, it is the height of the tackle which is the despairing part of it. There is no argument for Carragher to stay on the pitch.

Forget about photo shop, forget the excuses, look at the tackle, not the result of it.

Meanwhile, Nani thanked his fans on Twitter for their support:

Wenger on Twitter

In 2010, it was found that the number of Twitter users increases by 300,000 a day and a massive 55 million tweets are tweeted every day. A number of Arsenal players have contributed to those massive figures too, with Jack Wilshere only last week criticizing a referee decision after the Gunner's draw at Newcastle.

At the moment, Cesc Fabregas, Denilson, Jack Wilshere, Johan Djourou, Wojciech Szczesny, and Sebastien Squillaci are among those big name Arsenal players who pour their thoughts onto the social networking site. So naturally, it is of interest to their manager, Arsene Wenger to know what the Internet phenomenon is all about to keep his players in check - making sure that they don't deliver any controversial messages and get themselves into trouble.

The Arsenal manager had this to say about Twitter:

"I don't believe you can stop the players using it because everyone has the freedom to press his point.”

“You want it to be intelligent in a good way, in a positive way. The players can get closer to the fans and that is one of the positive aspects of it.

“But let the referee do his job and let us make sure that we are 100 per cent right with our attitude and behaviour.”

“We do not want to get involved in referee's decisions, we want to take care of our attitude and behaviour.

“No matter what kind of decisions we had on Saturday we could have won the game and that is what we want to take care of.”

So it seems that Wenger won't be dusting off his keyboard any time soon to sign up for Twitter, and will leave the informing of fans up to his players - just as long as they don't insult the referees. Someone the Arsenal manager doesn't need to worry about is Theo Walcott, who expressed his confusion at the concept:

"I don't tweet myself, I really don't have a clue what it's all about. It doesn't really interest me."