He's not the one with the *** text messages

This Wall Street Journal article (subs. req'd) does a mostly creditable job discussing the big sports news from England -- the transfer of Wayne Rooney (aka Roonaldo) from Everton FC to Moneychest Utd. Now, longtime readers of the blog will note that we have stayed almost entirely away from discussing big player transfers in European football, following a probable excess of Beckham related postings last year. But, (we did say mostly creditable)this line in the story is surely a blunder:

The precedent doesn't look good: European Premiere [sic] League clubs have been on a superstar buying spree that hasn't really paid off. Real Madrid's recent purchase of Michael Owen has been somewhat of a disappointment

Michael Owen joined Real Madrid from Liverpool about 2 weeks ago, and so far has played one match, in which he came off the bench and set up the winning goal for the real Ronaldo. So it's probably meant to be a reference to David Beckham, who's had one year to be declared a disappointment. So to compound the anguish of Liverpool fans, Owen is now being confused with Bonking Beckham.