Robbie Fowler has no doubt that he was a better all-round striker than his former Liverpool teammate Michael Owen.
Affectionately referred to as ‘God’ by the Reds faithful, Fowler scored 183 goals in 369 appearances across two separate stints.
In a golden era of strikers in the Premier League through the mid 90s, Fowler was right at the top echelon, the only disappointment being that his personal brilliance did not lead to team success with Liverpool being a greatly inconsistent team at that time.
A few years down the track and another extremely talented striker started to emerge through the Liverpool ranks in Owen. With Fowler suffering from a career threatening knee injury, Owen began to claim top mantle.
The treble winning season of 2000–01 is a memory that still sticks with a large majority of Reds fans today, and the two strikers combined for 41 goals across all competitions during that campaign.
But a continuation of that partnership was not to be as Fowler was sold to Leeds in late November 2001.
In a refreshingly honest reflection, Fowler spoke on the Up Front Podcast (Per The Mirror), and firstly addressed his own career compared to Owen.
“In all honesty, I’ve always thought I was better than Michael Owen. He was quicker than me, but in every other element of being a striker, I genuinely think I was better than him. He could say the exact opposite but that is just my opinion and my self-confidence – I was better in every aspect of being a striker.
“Michael wasn’t the best player at Liverpool when I played, but I remember him coming through at the club and you could see that he was different class. At the time I was upset not to be playing as much as him for England, but I didn’t want Michael to fail or play badly.
“Of course, I wanted to play, but I didn’t want him to not succeed. I think Michael just thought more of England than he did of his club, whereas I thought more of Liverpool than England.”
In terms of England, Fowler played 26 times scoring seven goals but once again feels that he compared more than favourably to his contemporaries at the time.
“I’d scored nearly 100 goals before I was called up to England – that to me is extraordinary, today I’d be in the England squad in an instant with the way I was playing back then.
"England had the likes of Alan Shearer, Teddy Sheringham, Ian Wright, Les Ferdinand and Andy Cole, but I genuinely would back myself to be better than all of them. In terms of goalscoring, I was probably the best at that time."
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