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LONDON (AFP) – Michael Owen insists he has no intention of giving up on his battle to become a key player at Manchester United.

Owen endured a frustrating first season with Sir Alex Ferguson's team after spending the opening half of the campaign unable to get into the starting line-up and then suffering a serious hamstring injury in the League Cup final.

That injury against Aston Villa at Wembley was especially frustrating for the former Liverpool and Real Madrid striker as he had just scored United's equaliser but wouldn't play again for the rest of the season.

The arrival of Mexico striker Javier Hernandez at United during the close-season could push Owen further away from first-team action if Ferguson continues to use Wayne Rooney as a lone forward.

Yet Owen remains confident in his ability to win a starting place, making reports of a move to Championship club Bristol City look extremely far-fetched.

The 30-year-old missed United's pre-season tour of North America as he recovered from the injury, but he showed off his predatory instincts with a goal in United's 7-1 friendly win over an Irish League eleven in Dublin on Wednesday.

"I am loving my time at United," Owen said. "I don't feel as though I have a point to prove. I actually look back on last year with a lot of good memories.

"I had some great moments and the only shame was I had to miss the end bit where the prizes were getting dished out.

"Out of the first 43 squads, I was involved in 42. If someone had said I would be available for 42 games last year I probably would have taken it."

Owen prefers to remember the bright spots of the campaign, including a Champions League hat-trick against Wolfsburg and an injury time winner in the derby against Manchester City.

Capping an energetic 45-minute outing with a well-taken goal against the Irish eleven means Owen should play some part in this weekend's Community Shield encounter with Chelsea at Wembley.

Understandably Owen hopes the work being carried out on the much-maligned Wembley pitch will guarantee he doesn't suffer another injury setback.

"They were there doing something on the pitch when I was at Wembley recently," Owen said.

"Something new has been installed which means 10% of the turf is now synthetic. Hopefully it makes it better because the Wembley pitch must have had something to do with my injury.

"I wasn't the only injury to come out of that game. There were quite a lot of other injured players. That is the worrying bit.

"If it had just been me you could say it was a freak accident."

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European giants Liverpool and Juventus began life under new coaches with victories in the first legs of their Europa League third qualifying round ties on Thursday.

A David Ngog brace gave Roy Hodgson's Liverpool a 2-0 victory at Macedonian minnows Rabotnicki, while Luigi Delneri oversaw an equally straightforward 2-0 win for the Italian side at Irish team Shamrock Rovers.

Liverpool and Juve have had to undergo the ignominy of the Europa League preliminary rounds after each finished seventh in their respective leagues last season, prompting managerial changes at both Anfield and the Stadio Olimpico.

With 10 World Cup players including Steven Gerrard, Joe Cole and Javier Mascherano all short of fitness, Hodgson fielded a team partly made up of fringe players at the Filip II Arena in Skopje.

Liverpool took the lead in the 17th minute when Lucas picked out Ngog and the Frenchman capitalised on Egzon Belica's slip to dink the ball over goalkeeper Martin Bogatinov and then tap it into the empty net.

Ngog made it 2-0 shortly before the hour when he crisply volleyed in Martin Kelly's right-wing cross from six yards out.

"There were a lot of players out there I need to learn about, as some of them I have hardly worked with," said Hodgson in praise of his young side. "It was a very good exercise in that respect."

Juve boss Delneri handed first competitive starts to a number of new signings, including goalkeeper Marco Storari, former Bari centre-back Leonardo Bonucci and on-loan winger Pepe.

Brazilian-Italian striker Amauri put the Serie A side ahead in the third minute in Dublin, finishing deftly after a sharp one-two with Diego, before netting his second with 15 minutes to play.

"I always felt we could go out and play the way we did and have patches where we could hassle them, but we knew it would be difficult to do that for 90 minutes against a side of their quality," said Shamrock boss Michael O'Neill.

"In the end I couldn't have asked any more of the players."

Bundesliga side Stuttgart emerged from their game at Norwegians Molde with a 3-2 victory, but only after the hosts had twice fought back from a goal down.

Sebastian Rudy's opener was cancelled out in the 65th minute by a fortunate goal from Mattias Mostrom, who charged down an attempted clearance and sent the ball bouncing past goalkeeper Sven Ulreich.

Zdravko Kuzmanovic restored the visitors' lead with a free-kick in the 74th minute, only for Magne Hoseth to reply two minutes later, before substitute Martin Harnik's back-post header settled the game in the 82nd minute.

Elsewhere, Sporting Lisbon won 1-0 at Norway's Nordsjaelland and French side Montpellier prevailed 1-0 at Gyor of Hungary.

A goal from new signing Dennis Rommedahl gave Greek giants Olympiakos a 2-1 win at home to Israelis Maccabi Tel-Aviv but Galatasaray let slip a 2-0 lead in the last 10 minutes to draw 2-2 against Serbia's OFK Beograd in Istanbul.

Maritimo of Portugal enjoyed the night's biggest victory, winning 8-2 at home to hapless Welsh outfit Bangor City.

The second legs take place on August 3-5, with heavyweights such as Manchester City, Napoli, Borussia Dortmund and Porto all due to enter the competition in the following round.

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MADRID – Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador has apologized for the way he took over the lead in the Tour de France from rival Andy Schleck.

During Monday's stage, Schleck's chain came off and Contador kept riding, rather than waiting in accordance with race etiquette.

In a video posted on YouTube, Contador said: "Maybe I made a mistake. I'm sorry. I don't like things like what happened today, I'm not like that and I hope the relationship that I have with Andy can go back to being as good as it was before this happened."

Contador initially insisted he hadn't seen that Schleck had a problem.

The tour continues Tuesday with the 16th stage.