FanHouse Michael Owen

There are times when the marketing aces at the Barclay's Premier League home office must get a little tired of constantly telling anyone who will listen that the league is the greatest in the world. Surely partisans in Barcelona and Madrid would argue otherwise.

However smug these assertions might come off, the Premier League did get another amazing game to add to its resume and worldwide popularity in the form of Manchester United's last-minute 4-3 derby victory over Manchester City at Old Trafford. As far as a 90-minute soccer game goes, it's hard to ask for more than anything than this match because it had pretty much everything.

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File this one away under something that nobody, I mean nobody, saw coming. Michael Owen was at Manchester United's training ground for medical tests and could sign with the Premier League champions before Friday is over.

It's not too often that a transfer is actually shocking, but if this one goes down it's a Grade A stunner. After losing Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez it's hard to fathom that Sir Alex Ferguson is chasing down a player who could barely stay on the field during his star-crossed tenure at Newcastle United. In fact, I read somewhere that Ronaldo and Tevez scored more goals the last two seasons than Owen made appearances.

As they say, the table doesn't lie. And at the end of the 2008-09 Premier League season, Newcastle United wasn't good enough to avoid relegation into the League Championship.

Sunday, needing a result at Aston Villa, Newcastle United lost 1-0, finishing 18th in the 20-team league. The Magpies are joined in the drop by Middlesbrough and West Bromwich Albion. Newcastle United was last relegated from the English top flight in 1989 and it took the club four years to return.