Rooney: Owen is right to back his own achievements

WAYNE Rooney has responded diplomatically to Michael Owen’s claim he was the better of the two players at the age of 17.

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Owen burst on to the scene as a precocious teenager with Liverpool in the late 1990s before Rooney did likewise at Everton.

Rooney went on to have the more successful career overall of the two forwards, but Owen - in a debate prompted in an interview with Rio Ferdinand - feels his achievements in their initial years were greater.