'Defoe part of dying breed as Lukaku more fashionable' - Owen sees change in striker circles

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EXCLUSIVE

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Michael Owen thinks that most teams are looking for tall, powerful strikers, with Bournemouth new boy Jermain Defoe the last in-demand striker to have similarities with himself. 

The former Ballon d’Or winner took world football by storm in the early 2000s with his starring performances for England and Liverpool, with his goals ultimately earning him a move to join David Beckham at Real Madrid. 

Defoe visits ill Sunderland fan in hospital

Owen is now a football expert for BT Sport and thinks that his playing style is falling out of fashion, with managers nowadays preferring players like Romelu Lukaku to Defoe.

“I was unique in that I was small and lightening fast,” Owen told Goal. “Abnormally so for someone of my height. Nowadays you don’t get many strikers of my size. 

“[Antoine] Griezmann is one exception but normally the teams all play one big striker. You’re not really getting as many small strikers. Jermaine Defoe is one like me but they are a dying breed, the type I was. 

BT Sport/handout

“I do think they will come back into fashion eventually. I think that when you go to three at the back, you can get two strikers on the pitch and that might be the next fashionable system. 

“We might be getting two strikers again. It is certainly starting to be more three at the back. I just think that the last generation in the last 15 years, we went back to big number 9s who could do everything. 

“Like Didier Drogba and now Romelu Lukaku types and players like that. That’s what has become fashionable.”