Shepherd: "Hindsight is a great management tool - everybody's wise after the event.
"It's very easy for people to say signing Michael Owen was a disaster, but everybody said it was a fantastic deal at the time.
"There were no dissenters back then. The clamour for him to sign was immense, and I didn't hear any complaints from the thousands who turned up to welcome him on the day he arrived.
"At the time we signed him, his goals-per-game stats were about the best in the business and his pedigree second to none.
"Plus, he had had no career-threatening injuries and we had his fitness stringently checked out, as Real Madrid had a year before.
"Yes, things didn't turn out anything like we hoped and expected they would. But nobody - and I mean nobody - saw it coming."