Manchester United striker Michael Owen admits he is seriously considering management post retirement.

Nothing is definite but the dug-out offers an intriguing option.

"If you'd ask me about management five years ago, I'd have said: 'No chance,'" he told the Guardian. "But I've started doing my coaching badges now so I'm on a rung of the ladder which would indicate I'm half thinking about it."

He eagerly engages coaches in tactical debate these days, with Glenn Roeder - one of his seven managers during a chaotic four-year stint at Newcastle - among those he regularly chats to.

"As you get older you start thinking about why and how managers do things," he says. "I find it all really, really interesting. That's why I started my coaching badges."

Who knows where they could carry him by 2018.

"I might be managing England by then," says Owen, laughing. "Nah, I'll only be 38, too young."