I have been very fortunate in that my career has taken me on a journey I could only have dreamed of.
— Michael Owen
I find it hard to say no to people.
If you're a goal scorer, you have to have a certain attitude. I'm very serious. My missus thinks I'm a bit weird. I'm cold, I don't have many emotions. It's very rare I cry.
As a youngster, I was considered exceptional, and in many ways that was to my detriment.
I want to have as normal a life as possible.
Horses will never be my career. It's just a big passion of mine, and one that will always be there in the background, but football is my main passion and everyone knows that.
To breed a winner, let alone at Royal Ascot, is unbelievable. I've got four children and they all love the mother. We pat it most days and she's a lovely mare.
As I've got older, I've become more intrigued about formations, tactics, I listen a lot more to the manager's team talk; as a kid, if I'm honest, I never listened.
I think England are probably not as streetwise as plenty of other teams. The other top teams know how to keep a victory or do certain things to hang on to leads or get back in games. They're a lot more streetwise than us. I think as a nation we are very honest, we try to win the right way.
You learn to understand it, but if you step back, you do think it is either strange or unfair. But I know that if you don't score, play well or win, you are wrong to have a helicopter and fly home each week to see your kids. You are wrong to have a business outside of football.
I joined Twitter and you read a lot of the comments. You're biting your lip and you want to reply but you know a headline will be made from it and you don't want to give people the satisfaction.
I'm confident in my own ability. If that wasn't the case you might as well pack it in now. If you think too much, you start doubting yourself, doubting your quality, so you have to train yourself in a certain way.
You're obviously conscious of being brash or big-headed but I always knew I was going to be a footballer when I was seven or eight. I didn't just think I wanted to be one, I knew I was going to be one. Nothing ever surprised me really.
I've got no hamstring in the middle. I'm basically running on two hamstrings on my right leg and three on the other. That injury has probably changed my whole career. I've been compromised from the age of 19.
An emotion that lives with me is a sense of 'what might have been' had injuries not robbed me of my most lethal weapon - speed.
There's nothing quite like a World Cup.
I basically run on two hamstrings on my right leg and three on the other. I'm losing a third of the power.
I was born to score goals, I feel.
I've always wanted to be a top footballer since I was young.
My kids are one, three, five and eight, and we are all horsey. The kids have got their ponies and can ride. Our foundation mare is special to our hearts. She was one of my first ever horses. She was my first ever winner at Chester, which is also special, and she's just the apple of our eyes, really.
Game by game is how I judge myself. At the end of the season, yeah, I do look back and think about how many games I've been available for, how many goals I've scored, how I've contributed. But that's what the summer's for. For now, you just look to the next one.
When you're a kid you just think about where you are going to be to put yourself in a position for the next scoring chance. But as you develop, you start to do things that may not catch the eye of the normal football watcher, the dropping back, the closing down.
I don't feel pressure going into games.
You are affected by the surroundings, the mood of people, by confidence. I am no different.
I was born to score goals, I feel. How I score them - how I get the ball into the back of the net - might have changed. The actual ability of what I was born to do will never leave me.
If you have any setback in your life, like not being in the England squad was for me - any setback, like losing a family member - everyone handles it in different ways. When I first wasn't included I was numb. I'd been the main England striker for years and years. It was really disappointing.
If you look at anyone at the top of their profession, there has to be something a little bit different. Some of the top musicians are quirky aren't they, to say the least. You have to be driven, cold, hard and mentally tough as iron. My missus thinks I'm a bit weird.
I feel that every time I get the ball at the moment I am going to score.
At 18 to 20, I was probably one of the quickest things around, at the peak of my powers.
If you look at anyone at the top of their profession, there has to be something a little bit different. You have to be driven, cold, hard and mentally tough as iron.
There is no doubt that I would have won more honours had I signed for Manchester United as a youngster.
I don't want to pack everything into one year and then do nothing the rest of my life. I think it's important to do things bit by bit.
I would like to think that if I stop playing in three, four, five years time, whatever it may be, that I would still be involved in football and still have that as my profession. It is my passion and what I know.
The difference with football is you're out on the pitch, you feel as though you can do something about it, or score a goal. But when that horse goes down to post as an owner you have no involvement whatsoever. It's a lonely old place in the stand. It's just down to man and beast.
I don't set myself targets. Last season I scored hat-trick against Wolfsburg and three days later, that was forgotten, you're about to be judged again. When you've done well, you don't want another game, you just want to feel great. When you've done badly, you can't wait for another chance to come.
There are pitfalls in World Cups, there are players who can win penalties and players who get the slightest touch and go down holding their face or whatever and get someone sent off. There are all these little things and you're hoping that you're not on the wrong end of it.
If you look at football over the last 50 years there has been a gradual decrease in goals, you don't see too many 10-nils these days, but two, three or four goals per game is a good spectacle.
The way I look at myself, the biggest achievement in my eyes - forget winning trophies or scoring in World Cups - is that I'm still at a top club playing at a really high standard having been almost two different players.
I was proper, proper fast at one point, and obviously I'm not now, so I've lost certain things, but when I was that fast I didn't need to do certain other things in a game. It was such a potent weapon.
I'd love to go and I'd love to play for my country and go to a World Cup again. I've got to accept I'm not in the current squad and just think, 'If I get it, it's a bonus and I'll give it everything.' But it's hard to do when you've been thinking a different way all your life.
If I'd still been in one piece from the World Cup and gone through my career, what type of player would I have been? No doubt about it, if I hadn't had as many injuries I would have been the all-time leading scorer for England.
