Goals early in the second half from Owen and Everton's young superstar Wayne Rooney won the match for England and afterwards Beckham said he was pleased to secure three more valuable points.

"We always want to put in a good performance for ourselves but we said before 1-0 or 2-0 can take the three points we need. We know we can play better but three points is what we got.

"A lot of people can talk about Turkey now. We are happy with the three points and we will let others do the talking about Turkey."

"It's what we wanted although we know it wasn't our most convincing performance.

"We know we can play better than that - but it was a professional performance and we got the three points we needed.

"It was going be tense and tough tonight. People thought it was going to be five or six-nil - but we'd have taken one or two."

Tonight was the Real Madrid midfielder's first time back at Old Trafford since his summer move and he was delighted with his warm reception: "It was a great feeling - the fans have always been great to me here.

"I was clapped off - and the standing ovation meant a lot to me."

Michael Owen, who broke the deadlock seconds into the second half, said: "I had a golden chance in the first half which I don't know how I missed - but we killed the game at the start of the second half."

It seems that the Liverpool striker is now beginning to overtake England legends with every game he plays. Tonight's goal took him to 24 in total, one more than Stan Mortensen and level with Geoff Hurst.

But the 23-year-old refused to get carried away with things: "I'm not even half-way to the main target. I won't think about it until - if - I'm in the 40s."

Owen was far keener to talk about his strike partner, Wayne Rooney: "We have players who have a speciality in that role - but he has ability.

Eyes now turn eastwards towards Istanbul and England's final group game with Owen confident that England will do what is required of them.

"Turkey was always going to be the big game in the group - and we're looking forward to it."