Owen Hits Back At "Madrid Failure"

Michael Owen: "I got on very well with the Spanish players at Real Madrid, the fans were very good to me and, apart from the first month, the press were very good too. It's not like I went out there and only played a bit. No one else in the squad played more games than me - I played 47 games, 20 of them from the start.

"I played a lot more than many people think but mud sticks if they see you on the bench. I played a lot of games and scored a lot of goals so I don't need to show them anything that they are missing."

"English football is great. You go onto the pitch and know that every eye is on you. You make just one bad pass and you know it will be spoken about the next day as there's that intense pressure. Moving out to Spain, you miss a bit of that. Spain was fantastic but it was also much more relaxed than England.

"It's about the pressure, waking up every morning, switching on the television to see the leading goalscorers' chart and then the league table. You are just permanently driving yourself to do better and better.
It's the buzz of having it in your blood every day to grit your teeth to do whatever is needed.

"I like knowing you are going to the stadium and it will be deafening and that whatever you do will be on the back pages of the paper, saying whether you were rubbish or good."