While Freddy Shepherd, the Newcastle chairman, completed a remarkable coup in gazumping Liverpool to sign Owen for £16million — “We were the only ones who had the balls to do it” — the Merseyside club were frustrated at every turn in their efforts to reinforce their squad, their frustration encapsulated by the collapse of their bid to sign Simão Sabrosa, the Benfica and Portugal winger, in the hours before the transfer window slammed shut.

Radio phone-ins have been populated by disgusted Scousers and jubilant Geordies, but a note of realism was sounded yesterday by Rick Parry, the Liverpool chief executive. It has been a frustrating summer in the transfer market, but with Champions League qualification and the European Super Cup secured in the past week, Liverpool could hardly be said to be in crisis compared with Newcastle, who are in 19th place in the Premiership and whose “balls” in signing Owen may be seen by some as desperation in that they paid £8 million more for his services than any other club were prepared to do.

The comparison with Newcastle was not one made by Parry, but his point about refusing to pay over the odds for players applied as much to Owen as to Simão, whose proposed transfer fee rocketed from £10 million to £13.6 million just as he was ready to fly to Merseyside for a medical on Wednesday.

“The big danger, particularly when you’re approaching the deadline, is you get desperate and do the wrong deal,” Parry said. “You have to hold your nerve and we in the end decided not to pursue certain targets.

“Wednesday was a strange day. We had an agreement with Benfica but when the story leaked, there was such a strong reaction they felt they couldn’t sell. Simão was sitting on a plane waiting to come for his medical, but Benfica called it off. It was disappointing, but there is nothing we could do. Had the deal broken down on June 30, perhaps there wouldn’t be such doom and gloom because you know there’s time to find someone else. That ’s not the case on deadline day because things can go wrong and there’s no room for manoeuvre.”

Some may feel that Liverpool, having identified the need to sign a central defender and right winger long before the end of last season, should not have been scrambling around at the last minute, but Parry feels that criticism of the club’s transfer policy is unfair.

“Don’t forget we’ve spent £20 million to bring in José Reina, Mohamed Sissoko, Boudewijn Zenden and Peter Crouch. Those deals were completed early in the summer,” he said. “We haven’t got 100 per cent of our targets, but which top club in the world ever gets everything it wants? “Rafa is philosophical about the situation. He insisted we didn’t pay for players who weren’t worth the money. He is sure we are better placed to challenge for the top places this season.”

Mark Gonzalez, the Chile winger, will move to Liverpool on loan from Albacete as soon as he can get a work permit, the Spanish club said yesterday.

SPANISH SIGHS

Disappointment on Merseyside, celebrations by the Tyne. The only place where Michael Owen did not make news was in Spain. Real Madrid’s profit from the deal was the only real area of interest for Spanish papers. However, an online poll of readers of AS, the sports daily, found that 60 per cent of those who responded believed that Real had made a mistake by selling the England striker.