MICHAEL Owen has thanked Newcastle United fans for their messages of support after suffering his latest injury agony.

The Magpies' record signing flew back to England on Wednesday night with his World Cup dream in tatters after suffering a ruptured cruciate ligament in his right knee after barely a minute of the Three Lions' 2-2 draw with Sweden in Cologne on Tuesday.

Owen, who faces another long spell on the sidelines after only recently recovering from the broken metatarsal suffered back on New Year's Eve, paid a visit to United's training ground on Thursday morning accompanied by his father Terry.

During his stay, he met physios Paul Ferris and Kevin Bell, while chairman Freddy Shepherd also made a special point of dropping in to wish the 26-year-old well as he comes to terms with his latest setback.

Despite being sidelined, Owen was keenly interested in the 10am launch of the 2006/07 Premiership fixtures, examining them in detail with player-coach Lee Clark.

And he was further boosted by the stack of well-wishing emails from Newcastle fans that awaited him at the training ground.

He told nufc.co.uk: "The injury is a big blow because after the World Cup I was really looking forward to the new season with Newcastle United.

"Now I have to accept I'm going to be out for a while again, but what will help me is the support of the fans and I really appreciate all the messages they have sent in and their best wishes.

"And I look forward to the day I can thank them by getting back out on the pitch and scoring goals for the team in a Newcastle shirt."

While Owen has ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament, newspaper reports claiming that he has also suffered serious damage to his medial ligament are inaccurate. It also remains too early to say how long Michael will be missing.