WITH the countdown to next summer's World Cup finals having already begun, Michael Owen has insisted he would not swap the current England squad for any other group of players readying themselves to compete in Germany next summer.

The Newcastle striker helped erase the memory of a largely uninspiring qualifying campaign on Wednesday night, with the 33rd goal of his international career contributing to a 2-1 win over Poland that saw England finish on top of Group Six.

With Sven Goran Eriksson's side displaying a swagger that had been absent in their first four games of the season, a renewed air of optimism has descended over the England camp ahead of December's World Cup draw.

And, while Owen admits one decent performance does not guarantee a successful summer, the stand-in skipper is keen to talk up his side's chances.

"I'd back our team against anyone else's," said the 25-year-old, who equalled Gary Lineker's record of 22 competitive goals for England at Old Trafford.

"You can never say for sure who's going to win or who's going to do well, because you just need a dodgy sending off or an unlucky injury to change the course of a game entirely. Something like that doesn't half break your stride.

"Maybe we deserve a bit of luck, and it would certainly be nice to keep everyone fit. If everything goes to plan and there are no disasters in terms of a sending off or an injury, I'd be confident of our squad going to Germany and doing very well."

If anyone deserves a slice of luck at a major tournament, it is surely England.

They crashed out of 1998's World Cup at the hands of Argentina, losing a penalty shoot-out that might not have been necessary had David Beckham not been controversially dismissed and Sol Campbell not had a potentially decisive goal disallowed.

Four years later, and injuries to both Beckham and Steven Gerrard hampered their progress in Japan and Korea, while their hopes of success in Portugal last summer were effectively wrecked when Wayne Rooney hobbled out of the quarter-final with a foot problem.

"It was a massive blow when Wayne had to go off against Portugal," admitted Owen.

"We were playing really well at that stage, and who knows what might have happened if he had stayed fit.

"I was feeling sharp myself in that game, he looked sharp and we were creating chance after chance in the first quarter of an hour. His injury was the type of bad luck you just don't need in a World Cup or a European Championship.

"People say that you make your own luck, and I wouldn't want to be complaining about our luck, or lack of it, in the past.

"But, at some point, whoever wins the World Cup will need a bit of luck somewhere along the line. Hopefully, we don't have any skirmishes before or during the competition. If it's a level playing field, I'd expect us to do well."

England hardly looked like potential World Cup winners when they were losing to Northern Ireland last month, either side of struggling to eke out one-goal wins over both Wales and Austria.

But, in all of those games, Eriksson's side was asked to break down five-man midfields showing little or no intention to attack.

Wednesday night's game was different - Poland were happy to throw men forward and leave themselves exposed at the back - and, while England will still counter more defensively-minded opposition in Germany, they are unlikely to come up against a side hoping to achieve no more than a goalless draw.

"We produced a typically English performance against Poland," said Owen.

"There was a lot of energy and a lot of running, but it's difficult to play in that fashion if you're playing against a team that just wants to stretch five across midfield and sit back.

"We've seen a lot of teams trying to do that against us during these qualifiers. Even when we've gone away from home, teams have tended to defend against us. Poland came at us and tried to take us on. When a team tries to do that, we fancy our chances.

"You can't blame anyone for the way things have gone in the last few games - we've been as disappointed as anyone with the performances.

"There have been reasons for that though. We've been playing against teams who think it's fantastic if they can sit all game and get a draw against us. That makes it difficult.

"It's hard to take on a side playing one up front and flooding the midfield. But we've got 25 points out of 30 and that's a decent record."

* England will be one of the eight top seeds for next year's World Cup finals, provided FIFA adhere to the same seeding system they have used for previous tournaments.

Under the established seeding points system, based on performances in the last three World Cups and the last three years' world rankings, England and France are in joint seventh place, just ahead of ninth-placed Holland.

Next month's friendly against Argentina should have no effect on their ranking, as only the best seven results of the year are given full weighting by FIFA.

The eight top seeds will be kept apart when the draw for the initial group stage takes place in Leipzig on December 9. The rest of the teams will be drawn on a geographical basis, with teams from the same continent being kept apart whenever possible.

Under the current system, the eight top seeds would be Brazil, Spain, Mexico, Germany, Italy, Argentina, France and England.