Quotes from Michael Owen

There's nothing quite like a World Cup.

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.

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.

If you look at anyone at the top of their profession, there has to be something a little bit different. You have to be driven, cold, hard and mentally tough as iron.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I think England are probably not as streetwise as plenty of other teams. The other top teams know how to keep a victory or do certain things to hang on to leads or get back in games. They're a lot more streetwise than us. I think as a nation we are very honest, we try to win the right way.

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)

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.

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.

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 was born to score goals, I feel.

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.