Michael Owen: 'England needed Paul Scholes'

Michael Owen has insisted that Roy Hodgson should have picked Paul Scholes for England's Euro 2012 squad.

The Manchester United midfielder came out of retirement to play for the club last season and impressed with his performances. England were knocked out of the competition on Sunday after they lost in the quarter-finals to Italy on penalties.

Owen, who is now a free agent after being released by United, believes that Scholes could have had the same effect with the Three Lions that Andrea Pirlo had for Italy.

"Pirlo was awesome but we have a player of a similar age and equally as good. Unfortunately he wasn't there - Scholes," Owen said on Twitter.

"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.

"Doubt we have the type of players to do that though. Answer has to be to start coaching our youngsters a different brand of football."

Italy now meet Germany in the semi-finals of the tournament.