Owen revelling in Rooney partnership
Michael Owen believes Wayne Rooney holds the key to his rewriting England’s goalscoring record books as he looks to set another landmark against Azerbaijan.
Owen, who has once again stressed his commitment to Real Madrid, struck his 29th England goal in the 4-0 weekend victory against Northern Ireland.
With Poland having thrashed Azerbaijan at the weekend, it is no wonder he is being tipped to overtake Alan Shearer’s international total of 30 tomorrow night.
The former Liverpool striker is 20 behind England’s record goalscorer Sir Bobby Charlton, but with Rooney’s help he knows he has every chance of catching the Manchester United great.
“Wayne creates as many goals as he scores, he is a fantastic player. If I’m ever going to make the record, I couldn’t pick a better group of players to be with,” admitted Owen.
“Everyone can create and score goals. This team will create chances regularly.
“Wayne and I are quite opposite in the way we play. He comes off short and tries to get in between the defence and midfield. I try to help him out in that and pull the defenders back to give him room to perform in.
“When he has got that room, that’s when I come alive and try to find some space, and 99% of the time he plays a good ball.”
Owen and Rooney are again expected to link up tomorrow night, with Eriksson set to retain the same team after David Beckham and Steven Gerrard shook off knocks to train yesterday.
A further two goals for Owen would not only leapfrog Shearer to leave him in fourth place behind Charlton, Gary Lineker and Jimmy Greaves in the all-time scorers list.
They would also put him first in the rankings of competitive England goals, having already scored 21 – just one behind Lineker and already one ahead of Shearer and eight in front of Charlton.
“That would obviously be very nice. I know that I would also go fourth overall and that would be fantastic,” declared Owen.
“Poland winning 8-0 has certainly got everyone thinking there could be a few goals about. I’m sure everyone will have a ruthless streak as you have to try to put games out of reach early on.
“Winning the game is the most important thing but if there is the opportunity to score a few goals, I’m sure a lot of the players will be pushing on to improve the goal difference and for their own enjoyment.”
Charlton’s overall record of 49 England goals is still a long way off, while Owen stopped short of setting his sights on Malcolm Macdonald’s five in a game for England against Cyprus in 1975.
“I wasn’t aware that five was the record and that’s a fantastic feat. I’ve scored four goals a couple of times before, but I don’t remember ever scoring five in a game,” he said.
Owen may not be playing as regularly as he would like at Real, but he again dismissed rumours that he could be set for a return to the Barclays Premiership this summer.
“Obviously if you’re not playing every week, people put two and two together and start linking players [to other clubs]. But, as I’ve said many times before, I’m very happy at Madrid,” he stressed.
“I’m not pretending that I’m delighted at sitting on the bench. Even if it’s once, I don’t enjoy it. But let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill. I will play more than 50 games in total this season and, in anyone’s book, that’s not too bad.
“I’ve been successful at Madrid and I’ve scored goals, the fans are pleased with me and the players respect me. I think that I’ve already proved myself.”
