MICHAEL OWEN believes he would be worth £100MILLION in today’s transfer market.
And the former England striker even compared himself to Kylian Mbappe.
Owen took the world by storm when he broke into the Liverpool first team aged 17.
After scoring on his debut in May 1997, he won the Premier League golden boot and PFA Young Player of the Year awards in the next season.
His iconic goal against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup – still as a teenager – further enhanced his reputation and three years later he won the Ballon d’Or for being the best footballer in the world.
Owen joined Real Madrid for £8m in 2004 and moved back to England with Newcastle for double that fee a year later.
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And now the pundit, 42, reckons his career bears similarities to PSG and France ace Mbappe, who signed for the Ligue 1 giants for £162m and led his team to World Cup glory aged 19.
Asked what his value in the current market would be, Owen said: “I don’t know, I mean, it felt like figures were a little bit higher, one or two years ago than they actually are now.
“Obviously, the Erling Haaland move wasn’t really a true reflection of his price because of the agency fee and all the different stipulations he had in the contract.
“So it was an open market, free market, when I was 19, 20 and at the absolute peak of my powers.
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“I don’t know, you’re talking £100-something million probably, I guess it’s hard to say.”
Owen then referenced Real Madrid target Mbappe, who some consider as the best player on the planet right now and almost guaranteed to win multiple Ballons d’Or during his career.
The 89-cap, 40-goal Three Lions international added to AceOdds: “Well, what’s Mbappe worth nowadays? I really don’t know.
“If he was to leave PSG you’d be looking at £150m, £200m maybe? So if a Mbappe was worth £150m to £200m, I don’t know…
‘SIMILAR TO KYLIAN’
“But yeah, I was that similar type of player who was breaking through, winning the Ballon d’Or, won two Golden Boots and went to the World Cup at 18 and all that kind of stuff.”
But Owen joked: “The one thing that you would say is even if I was worth £150million, then probably if someone bought it they wouldn’t have got a bargain because my career sort of got worse as I got older.”
Owen retired in 2013 with 262 goals in 571 career matches – and 222 in 482 at club level.
Of those, though, 174 of his strikes came in his first 342 matches between 1997 and leaving the Bernabeu in 2005.
After that, he managed 48 goals in 140 appearances across eight years.
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By contrast, Mbappe, 23, is currently on 247 career goals – just 15 behind Owen’s overall tally – from 365 games.
The in-form star is on 17 in 17 for PSG this term and could break his personal record of 42 goals in the 2020-21 season.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
