The England coach tells TheFA.com what makes Michael Owen one of the world's....

Tord Grip was at Highbury yesterday but when he caught up with TheFA.com this morning it was the match some 160 miles away in Cardiff that was on his lips.

Having seen Henry, Pires, and our own young lion Francis Jeffers dismantle Charlton, Tord then watched the Worthington Cup Final and was delighted if not surprised to see Michael Owen fire his side to glory.

After a couple of months during which he has found goals hard to come by, Michael now has three in three games and the way in which he took his chance yesterday - composing himself before slashing the ball past Barthez into the side of the net - suggests that England's number one striker is now back to his clinical best.

For Tord, it was just another example of why he and Sven, and the global football fraternity, hold the Liverpool poacher in such high esteem. The England coach believes that it's Michael's special alliance of mental strength and instinctive abilities that separate him from the rest of his contemporaries.

"Michael is a strong boy," the England coach reflected, clearly happy to have seen the England number ten storm back to form. "He is mentally very strong. He is quick on his feet and in his mind too. He takes a decision very quickly. That's how he scores because he is quicker in his head than the others."

So just how is Michael viewed in the rest of the world? The coach that has worked in World Cups and in Italy's Serie A is ideally placed to tell us.

"Michael is rated very highly," he says. "If you talk to people in Italy for example they know and respect him as a goalscorer. They have similar players themselves - someone like Inzahgi is an example.

"It goes in phases with goalscorers. I think confidence is very important these days with strikers because the chances do not come along so often, so you must take them when they do. That is what he did yesterday."

And in some style....

From Daniel Freedman