It looked so simple. At this stage many defences still concentrated on pushing up the pitch to keep strikers away from goal, a logical approach when dealing with aerial threats. In later years they would learn to defend deeper against quick strikers, while goalkeepers would sweep up proactively to intercept passes in behind when the defence took a more aggressive starting position. On that day, however, Arsenal simply had so much behind Leicester’s back line, which was ideal for Anelka. His second was similar, albeit from a neater, toe-poked Bergkamp through-ball. Anelka instinctively celebrated by throwing his arm out to point at Bergkamp, acknowledging the assist, although there would be no such celebration when Marc Overmars teed him up for his hat-trick goal. There was little acknowledgement between them, and only a half-hearted group hug between the two and Bergkamp, who was fittingly playing the link role in the celebration. Overmars and Anelka weren’t on good terms.
Earlier in the season, Anelka had complained his teammates weren’t passing to him, believing Overmars exclusively looked for his fellow Dutchman Bergkamp. ‘I’m not getting enough of the ball,’ he muttered to the French press. ‘I’m going to see the manager soon because Overmars is too selfish.’ Wenger resolved the dispute in a fantastically cunning manner, calling both players into his office for showdown talks. The complication, however, was that Anelka barely spoke English and Overmars didn’t understand French, so Wenger was not only moderator but also interpreter, and played the situation beautifully. He asked the two players to spell out their issues; Anelka repeated his complaint to Wenger in their native tongue, while in English, Overmars claimed he always looked out for Anelka’s runs and didn’t understand his problem. Rather than translating their comments accurately, Wenger simply told Overmars that Anelka had said he no longer had a problem, then told Anelka that Overmars was promising to pass more. Both were lies, but it temporarily resolved the situation.
But Anelka had another major issue with Arsenal’s system, which wasn’t apparent at the time – he didn’t actually like playing up front. ‘I played as a centre-forward at Arsenal and scored lots of goals, so people think that’s my best position, but I don’t,’ he complained later in his career. ‘I feel more comfortable playing a deeper role, like Bergkamp.’ He described France manager Raymond Domenech’s decision to play him as an out-and-out striker ‘a casting mistake’, while on another occasion he outlined his thoughts in blunter terms – ‘My main aim is to play well, which is where I differ from real strikers.’ Anelka’s understanding of a ‘real striker’, presumably, was a player who concentrated solely upon scoring goals – the likes of Cole and Wright.
Just as Anelka didn’t consider himself a ‘real striker’, Owen was once described by then-England manager Hoddle as ‘not a natural goalscorer’, a remark that was greeted with astonishment across the country. Hoddle, in typically clumsy fashion, had actually been attempting to compliment Owen. He phoned Owen and clarified his comment, explaining that to him, a ‘natural goalscorer’ was someone who simply stands in the box and waits for the ball. Owen, however, could pounce from deeper positions, usually by running in behind the opposition defence onto through-balls. It was true. He was a sprinter first, a finisher second.
There was an air of revolution around Britain in early May 1997, as Tony Blair entered Number 10 for the first time. Three days later, English football supporters watched their future number 10 for the first time, as Owen made his professional debut, netting the consolation in Liverpool’s 2–1 defeat at Wimbledon.
The goal was typical Owen. Stig Inge Bjørnebye played a through-ball into the inside-left channel, Owen raced onto it, opened up his body then finished into the far corner. It was a run – and a finish – we would witness repeatedly over coming seasons. ‘He started making decent runs off people, getting in behind them,’ said Liverpool manager Roy Evans, who had begun the match using Patrik Berger behind Stan Collymore, with Fowler suspended. Astonishingly, just 18 months after his professional debut, Owen would finish fourth in the World Player of the Year vote, behind Zinedine Zidane, Davor Šuker and Ronaldo, largely because of his famous goal against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup, when he sprinted past two flat-footed defenders before lifting the ball into the far corner. At this stage, with TV coverage of foreign football relatively rare across the world, one massive moment at a major tournament could elevate your reputation significantly.
There was a youthful exuberance about Owen’s early Liverpool performances because he essentially played Premier League matches like they were U11s games. He recalled that, during his schoolboy days, ‘all my goals at that time were virtually identical: a ball over the top, followed by a sprint and a finish. I was quicker than everyone else at that time, so it was always a one-on-one with a finish to the side. You don’t get many crosses or diving headers in Under-11 football, you’re always running onto through-balls.’ Little had changed by the time Owen reached Liverpool’s first team. The best example of his terrifying pace was the equaliser in a 1–1 draw away at Old Trafford in 1997/98, when he latched onto a hopeful flick-on to poke the ball past Peter Schmeichel. At one stage he appeared third favourite to reach the loose ball, behind Schmeichel and centre-back Gary Pallister (whom Alex Ferguson once surprisingly named the quickest player he’d ever worked with at Manchester United), but Owen’s pace was electric. Shortly afterwards, however, he was dismissed for a terrible tackle on Ronny Johnsen, and it’s often forgotten that Owen’s ill-discipline was considered a serious problem in his early days. He’d already been sent off for England U18s after headbutting a Yugoslavian defender.
In that first complete season, 1997/98, Owen converted a penalty on the opening day and eventually won the Premier League’s Golden Boot jointly with Dion Dublin and Chris Sutton, on 18 goals. Owen couldn’t have been a more different player; Dublin and Sutton started their careers as centre-backs – both with Norwich, coincidentally – before becoming centre-forwards, and they could play either role because of their aerial power. But Owen was all about speed, and 50 per cent of his 1997/98 non-penalty goals came from him darting in behind the opposition defence. At this point Owen was, understandably for a 17-year-old, somewhat simple in a technical sense. In his autobiography, in a passage about Manchester United’s rivalry with Liverpool, Sir Alex Ferguson observes that being forced to play so many matches so early didn’t simply harm Owen’s physical condition but also his technical development. ‘There was no opportunity to take him aside and work on him from a technical point of view,’ Ferguson claims.
In 1997/98 Owen scored only once with his left foot, sliding in at the far post to convert into an empty net against Coventry, and only once with his head, a rebound from two yards out against Southampton. 16 of the 18 were scored with his right. Noticeably, Owen generally attempted to work the ball onto his favoured side, even if it meant making the goalscoring opportunity more difficult, and when forced to go left, would still shoot with his right. His first hat-trick, on Valentine’s Day 1998 away at Sheffield Wednesday, featured two goals stabbed unconventionally with the outside of his right foot. Gradually, defenders deduced his limitations – Manchester United’s Jaap Stam openly admitted his primary approach was to force him onto his left – so Owen was forced to improve his all-round game.
Over the next couple of years, Owen spent hours concentrating on improving his finishing with his left foot and his head. The improvement was drastic. By 2000/01, Owen was an all-round finisher and determined to let everyone know it when celebrating goals. He scored two left-footed goals in a 3–3 draw at Southampton in August, and following the second, ran away with two fingers showing on one hand, the other pointing at his left foot. A month later against Sunderland, Owen beat six-foot-four Niall Quinn to Christian Ziege’s whipped left-footed free-kick and powered home a bullet header.