On the flip side of that debate, is there anyone in the current England squad that wouldmake the starting XI if travelling back in time to the era of 2002-2006? Owen added: “It's hard to say. Football is changing. It's changing quite a lot in recent years.
“Who would get in? Obviously Harry Kane, you take your pick. Do you prefer Wayne Rooney? Do you prefer Harry Kane? You've got to give Harry a big mention. Declan Rice, I suppose you'd have to find a position for him and that actually might force what I think we always should have done and played three in central midfield. You could have Declan Rice, Paul Scholes, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard - you could have three of those four.
“Who else is there? I think somebody on the left. We always had a mixture of players, we never really had a set left side and maybe Joe Cole was the most constant in that position. But we experimented with a few people - put Paul Scholes out there, we had the Nick Barmbys, Stewart Downings of this world. We had a few players. One on the left possibly.
“But in general, none of the centre-halves would get in ahead of ours back then. Maybe Jordan Pickford. We never really had a set goalkeeper, I suppose. Putting it this way, no one's better than Ashley Cole. No one's better than Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, Sol Campbell. No one.
“Is anyone better than Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard and Paul Scholes or Wayne Rooney or David Beckham? Probably not. Maybe you could argue three or four. It's quite hard to say.”