Owen Handed No.7 Shirt

Michael Owen was speaking to Sky Sports about his frustration of being labelled injury prone:

"There's no doubt I've had injuries in my career. You say that I've been injury-plagued in the last two years, but there are no facts whatsoever in that. I've played I think 33 and 32 games each in the past two years. We weren't in Europe and we didn't have any long cup runs and there are only 38 games in a league season. So that's not a bad record.

"The two years previous to that, yeah I was injured, but it was nothing to do with being injury prone. If someone jumps on your foot and your metatarsal breaks then there's long list of top players that have broken their metatarsal."

Owen also says there were more clubs in for him than Stoke and Hull as reported.

"I never spoke to anybody before I was out of contract at Newcastle. I can assure you that there were a few more clubs in than the press would have you suggest.

"There were a few good clubs, but obviously when Manchester United came in then every other talk was put on hold and the deal was wrapped virtually straight away."