Michael Owen was a gauche 14-year-old goalscoring prodigy when he first sat in front of Alex Ferguson, who looked him the eye and asked him straight: “So, do you want to play for Manchester United.”

Owen reflected years later that it was his shyness that prevented him from offering a direct answer to a question which was “was so big and so simple that it threw me off balance” but that: “the truth was, I didn't want to play for Manchester United more than any club in the world.”

How the course of 15 years can change things.

Ferguson's account yesterday of what he admitted had been a “difficult” summer for United included the suggestion that the club had been considering a move for Owen for several months but that the former England international knew he was only third in line for a role at Old Trafford.

First the Premier League champions had a frustrating wait to learn Carlos Tevez's intentions.

When he departed, Owen was asked to wait while United approached Lyon with a bid for the 21-year-old striker Karim Benzema. It was when Ferguson refused to blow £25m of “that wonderful sum of money from Real Madrid” on one of the astronomical deals which have characterised the summer transfer market, that Owen learned of his destiny.

Ferguson's calm talk — as he presented Owen, £17m Antonio Valencia and £3m Gabriel Obertan, of the inflated summer market — and his refusal to lose his head in it was a welcome antidote to the madness of the past month.

“There is no need to panic. We should not panic because of one player [Cristiano Ronaldo] leaving,” Ferguson said. “I don't think any of the transfers — if you look at them — are realistic. We have a very good squad and some good young players. There was no need to have a knee jerk reaction of losing him.”

Owen, desperate for an elite side with whom to rebuild his career, was willing to wait around, which means that the number 7 jersey worn last season by the outgoing £80m man will be taken up this time around by the Englishman signed for nothing on a two-year deal.

If Owen proves as successful Henrik Larssen — the last player he signed in such a deal — Ferguson will come to view the difficulties of the summer as serendipity. Granted, the manager's tributes to his new striker yesterday related to the days, before 2004, when he was causing United damage against Liverpool. “We always had to be aware of him in the last third,” Ferguson said.

“You always knew that he could hurt you.

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“I used to say to players ‘don't let him stand you up’ because he will be off you in a flash. He always had that knack of losing defenders in the last third.”

But Owen is burning with a desire to prove wrong those football men such Blackburn manager Sam Allardyce and Wigan chairman Dave Whelan about his fitness had angered him.

“I think the injury thing gets up my nose more than anything else and I don't believe I'm injury prone,” Owen said.

“Yes, I pick up an injury here and there but that is the modern day game; the rigours of the game. It's faster, stronger and quicker than ever before.”

Adversity has clearly changed his feelings about United since those teenage years, too.

“There are only so many top clubs in the world that you wish to play for,” Owen reflected.

“But in the last year or two I suppose it would have been pipe dreaming to think I would be plying my trade here.”

Owen accepts the need to prove the retention of ability that has made him only the fourth striker in England history to score 40 goals for his country.

“In certain parts, people do have a justification to have a go at me,” he said.

“I didn't set the world alight in the last year at Newcastle. That is no-one's fault but mine. We were not playing well as a team and I wasn't doing my bit either.”

The United manager does not feel Owen was helped by the handling he received during the early years.

Ferguson has still not forgotten sending Ronnie Wallwork and John Curtis to Malaysia in 1997 as part of an England Youth team Owen was also part of and noting that while his players returned to a six-week break, their young team-mate was unleashed on the Premier League by Liverpool and followed up with his momentous appearance the World Cup in France.

“I remember it well,” said Ferguson.

“I remember saying at the time it was unfair to have that strain and intensity of matches at big tournaments, one summer after another, with no summer break.”