You're either the best or the worst in the world, according to some, but I know myself that I'm somewhere in the middle."Owen's team are, for their part, somewhere near the top again. And he feels that, following their incredible, cup treble-winning season, Liverpool could finally be on the brink of another successful era. "When the season began," he says, "our target was to reach the Champions' League and, if we were being a little greedy, try to win one or two cups as well. So making it to the Champions' League and lifting three cups is unbelievable."Owen adds: "Let's just hope we go on to win the title as soon as possible now. I'm not sure exactly when we'll do it: next year, maybe the one after we'll see. Certainly, we will be trying to challenge Manchester United a bit better than we did this season.
I felt it was a bit of a feeble effort, on behalf of a lot of teams in the Premier League, not to get any closer. I think it will be a different story next season."One reason to believe Owen's optimism is that Liverpool seem to have rediscovered their mental toughness of old. Entering the home straight of their marathon season in sixth place in the Premiership and with two cup finals to play, G?rd Houllier's men put their heads down, pulled together and did not lose a single game. "We had set it up great for ourselves with about 10 matches to go," Owen recalls, "but, as everyone knows, the hardest thing is to finish the job off. We won eight of those matches, which shows how much we've come on. We all remember the way we slipped up last season right at the end, but we learnt from that.
I'd hate to think it's a coincidence we went on our best run of the season at the very time a lot of big games came along at once. We showed we have a good deal of mental strength."If Owen's dream to win the Premiership with his beloved Liverpool is to come true, much will depend on Houllier's ability to keep the current squad together. "If you look at the success Man United have had," Owen says, "a lot of it is down to them playing together for 10 years. That's why we don't want anybody like Robbie [Fowler] leaving Continuity is key.". On Manchester City's sun-baked forecourt the talk focused on running.
