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Wayne Rooney says Michael Owen was a better player during his time at Liverpool than Lionel Messi was in his teenage years, with the former Manchester United and Everton striker making a bold claim.
Owen broke through at Anfield at the age of 18 and won the Golden Boot. He went on to collect the Ballon d'Or, though the later parts of his career saw him held back by injuries. Before he turned 20, Owen had scored 54 goals in 100 games, compared to Messi's 70 appearances for Barcelona and 26 goals.
"It’s tough. But until 20, I would say Michael Owen," Rooney said when asked who the better wonderkid between the two for a TikTok video for the Daily Mail.
Owen went on to play for Real Madrid, Newcastle United, Manchester United and Stoke City. Rooney picked the Brazilian striker Ronaldo as the best wonderkid he has seen, ahead of the likes of Owen, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar.
Recently, Rooney has offered plenty of takes on Liverpool with Arne Slot's men struggling for form. He criticized Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah's leadership before U-turning on those comments in an awkward interview.
"This is a time when the manager and the leaders in the team need to figure it out very quickly," the former England skipper had declared on his podcast.
"Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah, they've signed new deals but I don't think they have really led the team this season."
"It's easy to say now [it's going well] because we won twice in a row," Van Dijk said after Liverpool beat Real Madrid in the Champions League, with Rooney stood next to him.
"In a world of chaos, we have to stay calm and keep the perspective of things. There is so much football to be played, so many twists and turns that can happen. At times, the noise was a lot."
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Rooney admitted he misjudged the comment about the Liverpool pair having taken their foot off the gas once their new contracts were signed.
However, he has since doubled down on criticizing their form on multiple occasions.
"I think that's a concern when your captain is speaking like that about the players lacking fight and not winning second balls and winning the challenges," Rooney said on Match of the Day this weekend.
"If we look here at how Nottingham Forest prepared themselves against Liverpool... they allowed Liverpool to come onto them early on and they were sucking Liverpool into traps all afternoon."
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