Michael Owen quotes:

If you have any setback in your life, like not being in the England squad was for me - any setback, like losing a family member - everyone handles it in different ways. When I first wasn't included I was numb. I'd been the main England striker for years and years. It was really disappointing.

There is no doubt that I would have won more honours had I signed for Manchester United as a youngster.

Nobody on this planet had a range of passing like Paul Scholes. Training every day was a pleasure just watching him. Unbelievable career.

Fortunately I am a mentally strong person and believe I will learn from the experience and continue to improve as a player and person because of it. (on breaking his leg)

I hate to admit this but I don't even know how to make a cup of tea or coffee. I can boil a kettle for a pot noodle and I've been known to warm up some food in the microwave.

The way I look at myself, the biggest achievement in my eyes - forget winning trophies or scoring in World Cups - is that I'm still at a top club playing at a really high standard having been almost two different players.

I would like to think that if I stop playing in three, four, five years time, whatever it may be, that I would still be involved in football and still have that as my profession. It is my passion and what I know.

The Spanish league is fantastic, but it has not the great passion the English Premiership has got.

I'd love to go and I'd love to play for my country and go to a World Cup again. I've got to accept I'm not in the current squad and just think, 'If I get it, it's a bonus and I'll give it everything.' But it's hard to do when you've been thinking a different way all your life.

If you look at football over the last 50 years there has been a gradual decrease in goals, you don't see too many 10-nils these days, but two, three or four goals per game is a good spectacle.

My Dad was briefly an Everton player and I used to follow them as a boy.

I can't believe anyone can have played the game of football as well as Messi.

An emotion that lives with me is a sense of 'what might have been' had injuries not robbed me of my most lethal weapon - speed.

If you're a goal scorer, you have to have a certain attitude. I'm very serious. My missus thinks I'm a bit weird. I'm cold, I don't have many emotions. It's very rare I cry.

I don't set myself targets. Last season I scored hat-trick against Wolfsburg and three days later, that was forgotten, you're about to be judged again. When you've done well, you don't want another game, you just want to feel great. When you've done badly, you can't wait for another chance to come.

The difference with football is you're out on the pitch, you feel as though you can do something about it, or score a goal. But when that horse goes down to post as an owner you have no involvement whatsoever. It's a lonely old place in the stand. It's just down to man and beast.

I feel that every time I get the ball at the moment I am going to score.

I have a great family, good friends, a nice girlfriend, my own house. I have got everything how I want it to be.

If I'd still been in one piece from the World Cup and gone through my career, what type of player would I have been? No doubt about it, if I hadn't had as many injuries I would have been the all-time leading scorer for England.

I've got no hamstring in the middle. I'm basically running on two hamstrings on my right leg and three on the other. That injury has probably changed my whole career. I've been compromised from the age of 19.

Horses will never be my career. It's just a big passion of mine, and one that will always be there in the background, but football is my main passion and everyone knows that.

Everton have a healthy list of injuries.

All Newcastle fans need to know is that I will be giving everything for their cause now.

I was born to score goals, I feel.

I wouldn't change my life for the world at the moment.

As a youngster, I was considered exceptional, and in many ways that was to my detriment.

You are affected by the surroundings, the mood of people, by confidence. I am no different.

Game by game is how I judge myself. At the end of the season, yeah, I do look back and think about how many games I've been available for, how many goals I've scored, how I've contributed. But that's what the summer's for. For now, you just look to the next one.

An emotion that lives with me is a sense of what might have been had injuries not robbed me of my most lethal weapon - speed.

You learn to understand it, but if you step back, you do think it is either strange or unfair. But I know that if you don't score, play well or win, you are wrong to have a helicopter and fly home each week to see your kids. You are wrong to have a business outside of football.

The bottom line is that I wanted to come back and play in the Premier League again and wake up on Saturday morning and really fancy getting out there and playing in front of this fantastic support, scoring goals and enjoying football. (on returning to the premiership)

There are pitfalls in World Cups, there are players who can win penalties and players who get the slightest touch and go down holding their face or whatever and get someone sent off. There are all these little things and you're hoping that you're not on the wrong end of it.

I joined Twitter and you read a lot of the comments. You're biting your lip and you want to reply but you know a headline will be made from it and you don't want to give people the satisfaction.

You're obviously conscious of being brash or big-headed but I always knew I was going to be a footballer when I was seven or eight. I didn't just think I wanted to be one, I knew I was going to be one. Nothing ever surprised me really.

I'm confident in my own ability. If that wasn't the case you might as well pack it in now. If you think too much, you start doubting yourself, doubting your quality, so you have to train yourself in a certain way.

I was born to score goals, I feel. How I score them - how I get the ball into the back of the net - might have changed. The actual ability of what I was born to do will never leave me.

[Wayne Rooney ] best tournament was the 2004 European Championships, when he played alongside me and made such a big impact, but it hasn't happened for him at the World Cup for one reason or another.

A lot of people have lost interest in watching England play. To get motivated to watch international football, you need your country to be having some form of success and England haven't had any for a long time now.

As everyone knows I've got a passion for horses.

Bayern Munich are probably the standout team on the planet.

Best atmosphere I ever played in was at Celtic Park in the UEFA Cup for Liverpool.

Best players I played with? Striker wise, well, I had a great record with Emile Heskey - he would be one of my favourite partnerships because we were so different and worked together so well.

Clubs don't like their players going off to play international matches and you can see a scenario where they eventually start to make it more difficult for international sides to call up players.

England have players who can rattle anyone's feathers

For me there's nothing better than putting the white shirt on for England and playing for England. I'd get worried if it wasn't like that.

Give me a great Champions League game or an exciting Premier League game ahead of an international match and I'd love that to reverse. A lot of people have lost interest in England games, it is quite hard to watch.

Henry had taken striking on to a different level

I don't believe in superstitions. I just do certain things because I'm scared in case something will happen if I don't do them

I don't get a lot of enjoyment out of sitting there for an hour and a half watching a game like we saw between Ireland and England last Sunday.

I don't particularly enjoy watching international football in the way that I used to. It hurts me to say that, but it's true.

I have always been confident that I would make it to the top.

I have never thought of a scenario where international football was not a massive part of our [England] game.

I loved [Real Madrid]. It was a real experience, playing with a great team. One of the first questions I'm often asked is 'What was Madrid like?' It's got that mystique about it. It's a magical place and a magical team, and everything about it is great.

I remember running around the park as a kid and pretending, shouting out 'Michael Owen in the cup final. He scores!' To actually fulfil that dream when you're older and score two goals made it just a magical day.

I think in terms of best players, I would have to say Ronaldo, the real Ronaldo, the Brazilian one. I was fortunate enough to have a year with him at Real Madrid. He was at the end of his career and was probably half the player he was. But, in his prime, he was quite simply astonishing.

I think it's getting tougher and tougher, all the big teams are getting stronger and there's more of them.

I think nowadays Manchester United is more competitive than it's ever been. Obviously, over the last one or two decades, they've always had one challenger or two challengers maybe, whether it be Arsenal or Chelsea.

I think the greatest Real Madrid player of all time is Cristiano Ronaldo followed by Ferenc Puskas. Ronaldo equalled Puskas' great record of 242 goals in fewer games. He was also the fastest Real Madrid player to score 100 goals and holds the record for most goals scored for Madrid in a season.

I thought I would break the scoring record when I got to 40 goals by the age of 27 or 28, but then Fabio Capello took over and he never picked me again.

I want to be a top-flight football player, so I lead the life that enables me to be that type of player. I prefer to be seen in a decent light rather than an indecent one.

I was proper, proper fast at one point, and obviously I'm not now, so I've lost certain things, but when I was that fast I didn't need to do certain other things in a game. It was such a potent weapon.

If you cut me in half, I'm a footballer.

If you only ever give 90% in training then you will only ever give 90% when it matters.

I'm sure clubs have a lot of power these days .

It bothers me when I don't score.

It was a real eye opener and I'm really pleased that I spent a year out there [in Real Madrid].

I've always been a player that likes to get round the back and get crosses in for other people. When I first burst on to the scene some people only saw the goals I was scoring. More recently they've taken notice of the goals I've set up. It is nice to be recognized for that.

Manchester United will always be a competitor, just because of the very size of them.

Often the biggest test is when the chips are down and you've got to stick together as a team.

Scholesy was a genius, absolute genius. He was a center-forward's dream, you could make a run and he'd put the ball perfectly in your path. Any footballer you ask will always tell you that Scholesy was one of the best players they've ever played with.

The better the opposition put in front of you, the better your team plays.

The Champions League is more interesting to watch than international football and the quality is superior as well.

The longer my career has gone, the more I seem to score... It's experience and age and knowing where the ball's going to be.

There have been more things wrong with England than just Wayne Rooney in the last few years.

There's nothing quite like a World Cup.

To be at the top, you have to have a competitive streak in you. If you're not performing, you've got to be angry with yourself.

To be the best you have to forget partying and concentrate all your energies on the football.

To stay in the game, you have to stay in the game.

When you put better teams in front of you, that's when the big players rise to that occasion.

While the World Cup is great every four years, I think people struggle to get themselves excited about qualifiers against the smaller nations. It will take some good performances from the national team to get the feel-good factor back, as far as the England team goes at least.

You always come back to earth with a thump at some stage. Life has it's ups and downs; the acid test is how you handle the downs.

You need people who score goals. That's how you win games

You're on your own out there with ten mates.

He's fantastic on the ground but obviously he is very tall.

[Wayne Rooney] has to be viewed as a great England striker if he breaks Sir Bobby Charlton's record. Scoring goals at international level is much more difficult than it was a few years back because even the lesser teams are well organised and don't concede too many goals these days.