Michael Owen will sign for Manchester United on a free transfer today provided that he passes a stringent medical at Old Trafford.

The move would represent an astonishing turnaround in fortunes for the striker, who was relegated with Newcastle United only six weeks ago. On top of the prospect of winning medals with the Barclays Premier League champions, the chance to pair up with Wayne Rooney will give Owen hope that he can revive his England career.

He has been exiled by Fabio Capello, but England are short of proven strikers with the World Cup finals less than 12 months away and Owen could force his way back into the reckoning if he succeeds at United.

Owen, 29, joined the ranks of the unemployed on Wednesday, when his contract at Newcastle expired, and his agents had been so concerned about a lack of interest that they sent a brochure to Premier League managers setting out his strengths.

Liverpool, his former club, were among those who showed no desire to sign him, and only 48 hours ago Sam Allardyce said that a deal would be too risky for Blackburn Rovers because of Owen’s injury record.

But Sir Alex Ferguson has decided that with Owen a free agent, it is a gamble worth taking. The United manager is hopeful that his big-match temperament will yield a glut of goals, while Owen will be thrilled after four nightmare years at St James’ Park.

The deal will require Owen to accept a huge drop in salary from the £120,000 a week he was earning on Tyneside. Everton, who made an offer this week, had been willing to pay a basic salary of about £50,000 a week.

The scale of the United deal is not yet clear in terms of length of contract or salary, but United are understood to have included incentives depending on games played, goals scored and trophies won.

First Owen will have to convince the doctors that he is fully fit. He has not suffered a bad injury since snapping his cruciate ligament at the 2006 World Cup finals, which ruled him out almost for an entire season, but there have been a number of niggles and he has lost his once extreme pace.

Ferguson’s interest in Owen is longstanding. He considered buying him when he left Real Madrid for Newcastle in 2005, but he already had Rooney and Ruud van Nistelrooy and was not willing to match Newcastle’s £16.5 million offer. United were considering a £12 million bid the next summer before Owen suffered the injury to his right knee in Germany.

United need attacking options. Cristiano Ronaldo has been sold to Real Madrid for £80 million, Carlos Tévez has departed, seemingly for Manchester City, and Ferguson lost out this week on Karim Benzema, who is bound for the Bernabéu from Lyons.

The intriguing question for United fans is whether Dimitar Berbatov, such a disappointment last season, would lose his place to a Rooney-Owen partnership. Capello, too, will watch with interest. Owen has played only once for the Italian, in a friendly against France in March last year, and the England manager has been sparing in his praise.

Owen, however, will be a lot more optimistic about adding to his 40 goals and 89 caps if he is modelling a United shirt by tonight.

If United’s move for Owen was a shock, Manchester City’s latest attempt to lure John Terry from Stamford Bridge was more predictable. Chelsea confirmed last night that they had rejected a second offer for the England captain, thought to be less than £30 million, after turning down a similar approach last season.