"There's plenty more to life if I'm not picked in the England squad."I'm playing for a top, top team playing for top honours, so we'll see where it takes us.
"I don't lie awake at night thinking about it. It's a simple equation, play well and you will be in, don't play well and you won't be in."
Owen's England career has stalled under Fabio Capello, despite his 40 goals for his country, and he revealed he has not heard from the Italian.
"Not about the situation recently, but I don't need to speak to him," he said. "I know the situation. I need to play well and score goals for Man Utd. If I do that then I could get picked.
"I will always score goals and I've got the record to show that. I think everyone knows what they will get from me and I have proven that at World Cups before.
"The last thing I want to do is start a campaign and say all the reasons why I could be or should be involved, I'm at ease with myself and the situation. I know what I've got to do and that's play well for Man United."
There's also a lot on Rooney in today's paper's. I won't cover the quotes in great detail, they're spread across 3 stories in The Guardian for those interested - here, here, and here. Best quote, this on Ronaldo:
However, when Rooney acknowledged Ronaldo as the best footballer in the world, there was still a sarcastic barb about the virtuoso's selfishness. "It's clear for everyone," Rooney said. "He scores goals. I've watched his first few games for Madrid and he seems to have improved again. He's passing the ball a lot more as well."
The ever-reliable Henry Winter's look at Rooney is worth a read, and includes this on Steven Gerrard sticking his nose in Man United affairs:
He remains remarkably sanguine about Ronaldo's role in his Gelsenkirchen Gotterdammerung. Rooney's great friend, Steven Gerrard, sat next to him on the bus from the ground, stunned that one club-mate could behave so treacherously to another, and offered all manner of suggestions of what he should do to the Portuguese attacker at Manchester United's pre-season training.And Oliver Kay in The Times looks at Rooney's comments about Argentina and Portugal:
The etiquette of planet football dictates that Cristiano Ronaldo will receive good-luck text messages from team-mates past and present in the build-up to Portugal’s day of reckoning in their World Cup qualifying campaign, against Hungary tomorrow. But, where Wayne Rooney is concerned, the World Player of the Year should not hold his breath.
Asked a simple question, whether he wants Portugal and Argentina to qualify so that Ronaldo and Lionel Messi can illuminate next summer’s festival in South Africa with their talents, Rooney gives a refreshingly simple answer. “It’s great that Argentina are struggling,” he says. “It would be nice to see Portugal not there because in the last two tournaments they’ve knocked us out.”
This is the reality of a professional’s existence, behind the ritual shirtswapping, the sugar-coated texts and the kind of advertising that would have you believe that Rooney lives in a virtual world in which he is forever meeting up with Ronaldo, Kaká and Fernando Torres for impromptu Nike-endorsed kickabouts.
The respect for his fellow luminaries is there, above all for Ronaldo, his former Manchester United team-mate, now at Real Madrid, whom he unhesitatingly declares the best player in the world. But that does not mean he wants to find them in opposition in South Africa, barring England’s route to glory.
A few more quotes from Owen Hargreaves today:
Owen Hargreaves was told by the surgeon Dr Richard Steadman that the damage to his tendons in both knees is worse than anything else he had seen in 35 years of work in his profession.
Hargreaves has described how his condition was worsened by his desire to play quickly after his acrimonious departure from Bayern Munich, with whom he had suffered a broken leg. "Part of the problem for me was my competitiveness," he said. "I was new to Manchester United and they had spent a lot of time, energy and money in getting me from Bayern Munich. I wanted to do well obviously. I came with symptoms [of tendinitis] but everyone said 'don't worry it will go' and so I always tried to be available. But playing on it made it worse. I wanted to play, though, so I played through it.
"After I broke my leg at Bayern they put me in a cast. The muscle deteriorates being in that and when I came out of it after six weeks and started to play again I don't think my muscle was strong enough."
Le Havre dispute that FIFA decision on Pogba from yesterday:
"Contrary to what Manchester United state on their official website FIFA have not validated the transfer of Paul Pogba but, as they normally do in this type of case, have issued a provisional international certificate," read a statement on Le Havre's official website, hac.infoceane.com.
"The decision of the international body is therefore a non-event and is normal procedure."
The Old Trafford club have now also been exonerated in the Pogba case after a single judge of the players’ status committee dismissed Le Havre’s accusations against United.
In their submission to Fifa, Le Havre asserted that a 'non-solicitation agreement’ had bound the club and Pogba to committing to a contract once he had become eligible to do so under French employment law.
United countered that the agreement had not been legally ratified and had no effect outside France. The club also claimed that, as an amateur, Pogba could not be bound to a contract and that the player and his parents had refused all contractual offers from Le Havre.
With Fifa rejecting Le Havre’s case and finding that there “was no reason to indicate that Manchester United had breached the Fifa regulations on the protection of minors (article 19), in its attempts to secure the acquisition of the player”, the club are now able to consider Pogba for selection at any level.
Finally, Rio Ferdinand is doing something or other:
RIO FERDINAND is to lock horns with a man even more fearsome than Alex Ferguson - top chef Marco Pierre White.The Manchester United defender is taking part in a special Hell's Kitchen night on November 26 in aid of his own Live the Dream Foundation.
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