Just how highly would you rate a young Michael Owen today?

Saw this video on YouTube and started reminiscing on Owen as a young talent. I couldn't really remember much about him outside of the 98 WC goal and his double against Arsenal in the FA Cup.

So found this video feel of his goals for Liverpool, I'll be honest I was shocked at just how good he seemed from such a young age.



So if there was a young player today with similar performances at that age, how highly would you rate them?

Mbappe levels or Rashford levels?

I mean, he was evidently class. Anyone who says any different is lying. Mbappe level.

Rashford level? Christ, that's clutching at straws a bit.

I’d have to say Mbappe levels. The speed of the lad was frightening, on top of that he could finish.

At the same age better than both IMO, but the same thing we have seen happening to players like this that are so special. They aren't given time to grow into maturity, thrown in while they are still developing and they pay the price later on in their career. Playing 30+ games at 18/19 with his pace will end in tears, especially when he will lose his main asset.

He was a great young talent. Quick, good with both feet and in the air. If memory serves, Fergie had him on trial at United when he was a young teen but he ended up at Anfield.

He was very, very good but also as a Liverpool player he was hyped beyond his actual ability. Somewhere close to Mbappe but not on a level with him, and much better than Rashford.

I fail to see what this has to do with his ability. Kleberson has one, too.

What is Mbappe was English?

Very quick, great movement and a superb finisher but he really didn't have the all round game of someone like Mbappe. He was just (and I say "just" acknowledging that it is the most important thing in the game) a goal scorer.

With a lot of young players you speculate how good they could be when they get more experienced and develop more maturity. With Owen, he was already mature and level headed when he broke through. His pace was such a huge asset to his game that when he lost it, he was nowhere near the same player.

It would also be really interesting to see him break through in the 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 era. He was always better in a front 2 playing off the last shoulder and never really contributed much in general play.

He played in an unforgiving era. A wee lad, who'd be a nightmare for anyone.

You put a 17-20 year old Owen in the league today, he'd be the most feared striker. Slightly under Rooney who played deeper.

No he wouldn't.

Owen was a very good striker but nowhere near the level of the greatest strikers or goalscorers. Even in this era the likes of Ageuro, Kane are much much better than Owen ever was. Just compare Owen's best ever season in the PL, 19 goals in 29 games. Kane has bettered that 4 times in his first 4 attempts, 21, 25 , 29, 30. You think Owen would be more feared than Kane?

People under rating Owen IMO. He was fecking brilliant when he came through. Let’s not forget he won European footballer of the year in 2001 besting the incredible Raul to the prize. The injuries and loss of pace did for him in the end, but from 18-23 he was brilliant.

For me he was the english 'Romario'.. in that he was short, agile, exceptional in tight spaces inside the box and lethal in front of goal with any type of finish inside his locker. At his young peak, he was dangerous from outside the box due to his ball-carrying ability and drop of the shoulder. Perfect decision-making and first touch for a young striker too.

Injuries absolutely destroyed him and left behind a mere goal poacher but even then his link up play was generally very accurate hence you could trust him against elite opposition even years after his peak.

He'd be behind Mbappe for me, as Mbappe is an all-round forward whereas Owen limited to just striker and never came across as one of the all-time great footballer material. Leagues ahead of Rashford.

Owen suffered his first major hamstring injury during 1998-99 at the age of 19, and suffered recurring injuries the year after. So his prime was stripped from him at a very young age. For me Kane will struggle to scare top defences the way Owen could do even post injury. Top defences were always scared of Owen's pace, movement and lethal finishing ability.. now imagine if he still had that dribbling ability he had pre-injury in conjunction with that.

Kane doesn't have to scare top defences, he just scores against them. Don't get me wrong Owen was a fantastic striker, and yes injuries did absolutely decimate his pace game, but his goal scoring record is definitely not top tier. Kane is a much superior finisher than Owen ever was, and it's showed in how many goals Kane scores. Kane has already surpassed Owen has an English striker in the PL and internationally.

Owen was fantastic but I take issue with people saying he would be the best striker in the league if he was playing now, absolutely not. Kane would be the far superior striker even if Owen was playing now. Likewise Aguero is far superior.

A 19 year old Owen would be a 100m+ plus player today.

Tragic how he wasted so many years injured at Newcastle, was never the same player afterwards

He had a better start then Rooney but fizzled away quicker then him. Unlike Rooney, Owen can blame it on his club. Liverpool burnt him out

Both Rooney and Owen were better players then Kane and Lukaku

You keep talking about his goal record but I just pointed out that his career (prime) was already finished at the age of 19. So to cite goal records isn’t a fair comparison when you consider he had already lost arguably 50% of his playing style in his teens. He could no longer run at players the way he used to prior to that injury. That’s why the comparison to Kane and Aguero best goalscorinf seasons is unfair if we’re talking about who was the better player based on peak. If you’re saying that you’d rather have Kane over Owen because the former is less likely to break down then yes that makes sense, but if we’re assuming Owen in prime and injury free - for me he was definitely a better player than Kane and as his international exploits prove, a more reliable goalscorer at the highest pressure than Aguero too.

Well the poster said Owen at 17 to 20
This is say 1996 to 2000
95 pl games and 48 pl goals
116 club games 59 total goals
24 england games 8 goals

Kane at the same age would take us to the season of 2013 at which point he has played
4 pl games and no goals
35 championship games and 9 goals
18 league 1 games and 5 goals
No International games
55 total club games and 16 goals

Frankly if somebody came along producing the goal to game ratio of a young Owen there would be crazy money thrown about

Mbappe will be 20 this season
71 league 1 games and 32 goals
119 club games and 56 goals
22 international games 8 goals

So yeah add in the fact owens goals came in the pl... Factor in the English premium and most probably a young Owen would be at leastlmbappe kind of money

If the team needs an Inside Forward - Mbappe; if the team needs a striker - Owen. Owen was great when he was young.

I`d argue that 48 PL goals are harder to score than 50 goals in France.

He himself says that the burnout theory is a myth. He always knew he would have muscle injuries and it was just a question of when not if. His father and brother were all knackered with the same type of injuries and Owen says it's down to genetics and the way he is made.

Is he the last English player to win the Balon D'or?

Owen was much better than Kane is now. Kane is playing in an era of shit centre backs in the league. Owen was up against some of the best. No wonder he scored less.

Mbappe isn't better than Owen was at the ages of 17-19 nor does he carry the same threat. World class defenders were terrified of Owen and it afforded teams he was in plenty of scope to manipulate the space around him.

What Mbappe has is an expansive, multi- positional, team inclusive game that, by default brings a team together and gives more than one way to hurt the opposition, but in a head-to-head as a finisher or goalscorer, Owen outdoes him.

Outside of himself and his own specialist traits, Owen's game was underdeveloped and in line with what you'd expect from a teenager and had a long way and plenty of need to develop. There's no question that Mbappe is miles ahead of anything Owen managed as a combination player or a mature, spatially aware player who can see more than the final objective of putting the ball in the net.

In short, they'd both be top of the tree in terms of valuation with different facets needing work to complete them.

8.5/11

Defending was better then to be fair. I don't think he would have been as good as Kane or Aguero though

I would put Owen behind Mbappe because Mbappe seems to have a higher skillset than Owen had, but Owen would certainly be above Rashford today.

That being said, this is comparing Owen in 98 to Mbappe today. If Owen were playing today i don't think he would be as good a player as he was then because tactics have changed so much. Given his lack of height and technical ability on the ball, plus his great speed, it is likely he would've been shifted to an inside forward position, like Mbappe and Rashford, or not play at all.

Much more is demanded of strikers other than goal scoring due to the one man striker formations, they have to either be physically strong to hold the ball and play in others, like Lukaku and Kane, or be a great all round player like Aguero. That is where I think Owen would lack in today's world because few formations play two strikers like during the days of Owens peak, which worked given his abilities.

I think it's the opposite. Today most teams play deeper and lower teams often use park the bus tactic. Owen skills would be less useful.

Teams press and expose themselves on the break more than ever. Cleans breaks are far more frequent now than they've been in decades; pre-injury Owen would be a problem for these teams, and there are a lot of them. Those that sit and try and defend the traditional way aren't as good at it as the sides from Owen's era.

Kane has more in his locker to score against a deep-lying defence. The young Owen was less effective against a packed defence which is partly why he didn't boost his PL goal tallies against the weaker teams in the league. He also played in a Liverpool team that averaged 10 points a season less than Kane's Spurs, and was notoriously defensive and rigid going forward. But Owen is still miles ahead at international level. In his two World Cups he scored against Romania, Argentina and Brazil, and won decisive penalties against Argentina in two separate tournaments. His only goal in Euro 2004 was against Portugal in the quarter-final. His overall record in knockout games at the World Cup and Euros reads played 3, scored 3. The bigger the game the more likely he was to deliver. In contrast, Kane was non-existent at Euro 2016, racked up the goals against the cannon fodder this summer and became increasingly less effective as the opposition grew stronger. To date Kane is the better striker in the league, but Owen terrified world-class defenders with his sheer pace and singular ability to exploit it.

Talent wise better than Mbappe and far above Rashford. Would be the very best striker under 22 if he came along today as a 17 year old.

Young Owen was really special and absolutely terrified defences. Who knows how good he could have been without those injuries.

He would have torn this league up.

There was a good interview with Owen posted in here last week. He said his first major injury at 19 took something from him as they couldn’t operate in those days so his hamstring (I think) was only at 2/3rds of its strength from then on.

Imagine how good the young Owen would be playing for a Guardiola side or for a team like PSG or Bayern that have no teams near their level in their league.

More composed than Mbappe and Rooney at the same age, I don't think he had quite as much raw footballing potential as either though. He was lightning and had an instinct for scoring, and had found his niche very young. Most teams in the world would take a young Owen now.

Can't think of many better finishers than Owen that I've seen.

His pace when he was young was also unique, he would glide past players and make it look so easy.

You're talking £150-200m if he was around today. Obviously that would be a waste given his injury troubles, but talent wise that's the value.

Strange that the video missed the first goal he scored off!
I remember that one, as I was still at school, and it was a classic vintage Owen goal. Getting onto a through ball, annihilating everyone for pace and cool finish.

Like with Rooney, people forget the pure prodigy element, and how excellent he was as a kid.
I always feared playing him.

Quick, lively and a smart finisher is how I remember him. The best kind of striker imo.

He played at a time when defenders were allowed to be more physical in the tackle and marking.

Put young Owen in this league he'd tear it up attackers have much more protection

What team would he playing for? Would he be playing at the very top clubs?

Manchester City: Sergio Aguero
Real Madrid: Benzema
Bayerm Munchen: Lewandowski
Barcelona: Luis Suarez
Chelsea: Morata, previously Diego Costa
Juventus: Higuain previously, now Cristiano Ronaldo.
Napoli: Mertens
Liverpool: Firminho
Tottenham: Harry Kane


Notice there is a pattern with the #9s there. Michael Owen was a specilaist. Football today is about automatisms and universailty.