LONDON: England and Newcastle striker Michael Owen has strenuously denied he is set to retire at the end of the season.

Owen, 29, has not scored since January and was substituted against Middlesbrough last week with the score at 1-1 before Newcastle won 3-1 to move out of the Premier League’s bottom three.

The Daily Express reported on Friday that Owen was set to quit the game in the summer and become a full-time racehorse trainer and owner. Owen is out of contract at the end of the season and the club’s temporary manager, Alan Shearer, has admitted he does not know where the striker will be playing next season. Owen was quick to refute the newspaper’s claims. “Any suggestion or unfounded speculation that Michael Owen has any intention of quitting football is totally untrue and wrong,” said a statement from Owen’s management company Wasserman Media Group.