Michael Owen has publicly rejected a social media comparison between himself and Wayne Rooney, posting a detailed numerical response on X. The former striker defended his early career record and challenged any suggestion that Rooney was the superior youngster.<\/p>\n
Owen set out specific figures in the comment thread, writing: \u201cAt 17, I scored 18 PL goals (winning the Golden Boot), Wazza scored six. At 18, I again scored 18 goals (again winning the Golden Boot and coming fourth in the Ballon d\u2019Or), Wazza scored nine,\u201d Owen replied on X. \u201cIn our opening seven seasons, Wazza didn\u2019t outscore me once (117 goals vs. 80). In which time I became the second youngest Ballon d\u2019Or winner ever.<\/p>\n
At 17 I scored 18 PL goals (winning the Golden Boot), Wazza scored 6. At 18 I again scored 18 goals (again winning the Golden Boot and coming 4th in The Ballon d\u2019Or), Wazza scored 9. In our opening 7 seasons, Wazza didn\u2019t outscore me once (117 goals v 80). In which time I became\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cInjuries hindered me from then on while he sustained his level. Therefore, he\u2019ll go down as a better player than me. But, at 17, please……\u201d<\/p>\n
The exchange underlines two clear threads from the draft: Owen emphasised his precocious goalscoring output, and he acknowledged that injuries limited his later career while Rooney maintained consistency. The draft notes Owen remains the last English player to win the Ballon d\u2019Or, having scooped the prize in 2001. It also contrasts career Premier League totals: Owen finished with 150 strikes in 326 matches, while Rooney produced 208 goals but required 491 games to reach that number.<\/p>\n
The debate revolves around raw early numbers and subsequent career trajectories. Owen used the platform to assert the superiority of his teenage output, while the broader picture includes Rooney\u2019s greater longevity and a playing style described in the draft as likely to resonate with a larger percentage of English supporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Owen furiously responded on X, defending his teenage goalscoring record and listing statistics post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2557,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,179,172],"tags":[593,941,942],"class_list":["post-2558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-manchester-united","category-epl","tag-ballon-dor","tag-michael-owen","tag-wayne-rooney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}