Former Manchester United striker Michael Owen has said that England failed to get past the quarter-final stage in the Euro 2012 due to the fact that they did not have a player like Paul Scholes, according to the Man Utd news website.

There was a rumour prior to the start of the tournament that Roy Hodgson would consider asking Paul Scholes to come out of retirement in order to help England do well at the Euro 2012. However, the rumour never materialised and Roy Hodgson did not take Paul Scholes to their Euro 2012. Even though his absence was not felt during the group matches, England could have certainly done with him in the quarter-final against Italy according to Michael Owen.

The 30-year-old former Liverpool striker was recently released by Manchester United after his contract came to an end. He has been linked with a move to Premier league club Stoke city. He has played alongside Paul Scholes for three seasons.

As a result, he has been able to appreciate the quality that the former England midfielder has. Andrea Pirlo was extremely influential in the match against Italy. Michael Owen reckons that Paul Scholes could have been very similar to Andrea Pirlo if he had been taken to the tournament.

‘Pirlo was awesome but we have a player of a similar age and equally as good. Unfortunately he wasn’t there. Scholes. We missed Wayne Rooney in the first two games too. Easy for people to say “until we keep possession better we will never win anything”. We are not as good as others at doing that. We played to our strengths but are just not quite good enough.

We were hoping to “do a Chelsea”. If you are not the best team then you have to find an alternative way to win. The other option is to forget results for a while and start from scratch playing a different style,” said Michael Owen.