Did you know that Michael Owen is paid to promote a certain brand of watch? Don't all shout at once, it was something of a rhetorical question. If you haven't seen the Owen timepiece photographed or mentioned in various media outlets over the past few weeks then you simply haven't been keeping abreast of the news. In that case you probably don't know that Owen wants to go to the World Cup either, and is sure he would score for England if they would only deign to select him.

You cannot say the boy lacks confidence and neither can Owen ever be accused of being indifferent about playing for his country. There are some who would argue Owen is so keen to play for his country he occasionally alienates the supporters of the clubs who pay his wages by appearing to have his priorities in the wrong order, though that might be a tad harsh.

Such criticisms first surfaced while he was in the wilderness at Newcastle, and anyone caught up in that madness could be excused for pining for the relative sanity of playing for England. Secondly it cannot be easy bursting on to the international scene as Owen did in 1998, wowing the world and being confidently tipped to break the England goalscoring record, only to find yourself frustratingly under-used 11 years later with the target in sight.

With just five more England goals, Owen could move past Jimmy Greaves into third place behind Bobby Charlton and Gary Lineker. Ten more goals would see him hit the half century mark and establish a new record in his own right. Owen is unlikely to score 10 goals should he get to South Africa this summer – no one is quite that prolific – but these are not unattainable totals for goalscorers who are also regular internationals.

Owen has just missed a whole qualifying cycle and is now in danger of missing the finals as well. It is a moot point whether he would score an average of a goal every other game if restored to the side, as he has suggested, just as it is debatable whether the successful attacking shape Fabio Capello has constructed for England would work as smoothly with Owen alongside Wayne Rooney instead of Emile Heskey.

Yet while those two are the preferred England spearheads, two things are certain. One is that Heskey will never get anywhere near Owen's tally of 40 England goals. The other is that Rooney, if he keeps playing, will surpass it. Rooney turns 24 this month, plays in every game possible, and already has 25 goals despite a couple of injury lay-offs. Being almost six years younger than Owen not only means that Rooney has time on his side, it is currently allowing him to take injuries in his stride and come back just as strong.

Owen is finding that increasingly difficult to manage. The strain that put paid to his latest audition for Capello, just after he had won the Manchester derby in thrilling fashion, was a stroke of bad luck – though not an entirely isolated occurrence. One can fully understand his frustration, and even sympathise with his desire to use his contacts and sponsors to talk up his chances and keep his name in the papers, though Capello is likely to remain impervious to the constant drip of a media campaign. Steve McClaren might have been more easily swayed, though McClaren was unlikely to have overlooked Owen for any length of time in the first place. Capello simply wants to see Owen do on the pitch what he is currently only talking about in interviews. Given what happened at the last World Cup, and England's still less than plentiful assortment of attacking options, Capello can hardly go out on a limb for someone who has yet to make an unanswerable case for himself in a Manchester United shirt.

Owen's club form and fitness should be his first priority this season. When he scored his first competitive goal for United, at Wigan in August, he had no time for reporters waiting with microphones and open notebooks. "You cane me, then you want an interview?" Owen said as he brushed past, meaning that he was not about to accommodate people who had variously described him as finished, old or injury prone.

Unprofessional as it may seem, I have to admit I thoroughly admired that attitude. For a start it was an attitude, and open hostility is preferable to half-hearted cooperation any day of the week. That's why Diego Maradona's widely reported rudery last week would have struck most reporters as a breath of fresh air.*

For another thing it is always refreshing to find a footballer willing to be judged on his deeds rather than his words. Owen seemed to be admitting that he found the criticism hurtful as well as acknowledging that he had only just started to prove his doubters wrong. A single goal in a 5-0 win was nothing to get excited about, he appeared to be suggesting, not when he was so obviously confident that more would follow.

What actually followed was a well-taken winner in the 96th minute of United's victory over City, then some self-promoting interviews, then the latest injury disappointment. Owen does not need to worry about attracting Capello's attention. The Italian knows all about his goalscoring ability and has been asked his opinion of Owen at just about every press conference he has held in this country. Always the answer is the same. He has to play. Not score, play.

It was hard not to feel sorry for Owen at Wembley last week when he was forced to watch from the stands as England's attack laboured against Belarus, and in this particular case Capello's general goodwill gesture may not have been the best thought-through piece of man-management. Owen quite possibly feels the world is against him at the moment, and Capello in particular. This is not the case yet, though it could soon be if he continues to state his case in the press rather than on the pitch. There is still plenty of time; what Owen needs to do between now and the end of the season is demonstrate he still has the gift of immaculate timing. Over and above what he wears on his wrist.

* Variation on an ancient joke. A London toilet cleaner tells a businessman with an urgent need to use the loo he is pleased to see him. "We mostly get drug-dealing, cottaging, coke-snorting and prostitution down here. When someone comes in with diarrhoea it's like a breath of fresh air!"