Michael Owen and Peter Crouch have been backed to make up for the loss of Wayne Rooney by scoring the goals to take England to World Cup glory in Germany.
Newcastle forward Owen and Liverpool striker Crouch were set to line up alongside each other yesterday as England faced Hungary in a pre-World Cup friendly against Hungary at Old Trafford.
With Rooney's World Cup fate hanging in the balance due to the broken metatarsal injury suffered while playing for Manchester United against Chelsea last month, England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has been forced to find an alternative partner for Owen.
PHOTO: EPA
And defender Rio Ferdinand believes that the 2.02m Crouch has done enough to prove that he has the attributes to be a World Cup success story for England.
"I think Michael and Crouchy have a lot of potential as a strike pairing and they showed that when we beat Argentina earlier last November," Ferdinand said.
"Peter is under-estimated because of his height, but he brings other players into the game and it's not just about his good touch and height. Against Argentina, their defenders were wondering who on earth he was when he came on as a substitute and they had about three players trying to mark him," he said.
PHOTO: EPA
"That meant that Michael suddenly had a lot of space to run into and it paid off because he scored the winning goals late on," he said.
Owen, 26, has only just fully recovered from breaking a bone in his foot on New Year's Eve, but it was a "tight thigh" after training on Monday that caused Eriksson to send him to hospital for a scan.
The results showed no serious problem and Owen will take his place in what Eriksson has said will be the team he expects to play against Paraguay, on June 10 in England's World Cup opener.
The former Liverpool and Real Madrid star is likely to be given 90 minutes against the Hungarians and Ferdinand admits that the striker is a crucial figure in England's plans.
"Michael is a fantastic goal-poacher and you know that you can rely on him to do the business in the big matches. If he hasn't had a touch in the whole 90 minutes, he is still capable of scoring the winner in the first minute of stoppage time," he said.
"He has been out injured for a long time this season, but he is getting the chance to build up his fitness in the games against Hungary and Jamaica this week and by the time the World Cup starts, he should be flying. His record speaks for itself and you wouldn't bet against him breaking Bobby Charlton's international scoring record sooner rather than later," Ferdinand said.
Eriksson, who dismissed as "not true at all" reports that he had told senior England players that he wanted to become the next manager at Real Madrid, conceded that his initial hopes that Hungary would provide suitable preparation for the World Cup game against Sweden have been dashed in the wake of Peter Bozsik's appointment as the new Hungary manager in place of Lothar Matthaus.
"When we decided to play Hungary, I phoned up the manager, Lothar Matthaus, and asked if he wanted a game at Wembley," Eriksson said.
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