Michael Owen returns to Wembley on Sunday crossing his fingers the pitch problems which ended his first season at Manchester United are over.
Owen's presence as a regular member in Sir Alex Ferguson's squad last season was brought to an abrupt end in the most cruel circumstances last February.
Having scored the goal that brought United level in their Carling Cup final with Aston Villa, Owen pulled up as he chased a ball into the Villa box and scans later diagnosed a hamstring injury which ruled him out for the remainder of the campaign.
The 30-year-old was also forced to sit out United's pre-season tour of North America, so he was making his first appearance in Wednesday night's seven-goal hammering of an Airtricity XI in Dublin.
Capping an energetic 45-minute outing with a well-taken goal means Owen should play some part in this weekend's Community Shield encounter with Chelsea.
At Wembley to do some promotional work for the Football Association last week, Owen noted the work being carried out on the pitch he blames for his debut United season ending early. Now he can only hope it works.
"They were there doing something on the pitch when I was at Wembley recently," said Owen.
"Something new has been installed which means 10% of the turf is now synthetic. Hopefully it makes it better because the Wembley pitch must have had something to do with my injury.
"I wasn't the only injury to come out of that game. There were quite a lot of other injured players. That is the worrying bit.
"If it had just been me you could say it was a freak accident."
The injury was the major blot on what Owen felt was otherwise an excellent first season at Old Trafford.
That cup final goal - and winner's medal secured by his replacement Wayne Rooney - a Champions League hat-trick against Wolfsburg and a memorable finish in the sixth minute of injury time to settle the first Manchester derby of the season were the undoubted highlights that leave Owen keen to experience more, even if highly ambitious Bristol City apparently have other ideas.
"I am loving my time at United," he said.
"I don't feel as though I have a point to prove. I actually look back on last year with a lot of good memories.
"I had some great moments and the only shame was I had to miss the end bit where the prizes were getting dished out.
"Out of the first 43 squads, I was involved in 42. If someone had said I would be available for 42 games last year I probably would have taken it."
Ferguson will check on the relative fitness of his squad before finalising his line-up for the weekend, knowing the fact that United's opening Premier League fixture with Newcastle has been put back 48 hours to August 16 provides vital preparation time in a week badly disrupted by midweek internationals.
Michael Carrick has already been ruled out with an ankle injury which Ferguson does not believe is too serious.
For Owen, it is another opportunity to confirm his well-being, and forget what damage that pitch did.
"It is hard to judge whether I am back to 100%," he admitted.
"I have trained a lot and I suppose I could have travelled for part of the America trip but a long-haul flight and a lot of travelling wasn't conducive to coming back from quite a long time on the sidelines.
"But I have played my first game now, which is bound to give me a lot of confidence.
"Now I have to forget about it because the hardest thing for me to do is actually get in the team to play on the pitch this Sunday."
