London: Gareth Southgate urged England to “be brave”. Now it is time for the interim manager to be bold: he needs to become the first incumbent in the job to drop Wayne Rooney.
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Gareth Southgate AP |
Any objective analysis of England’s 2-0 victory over Malta on Saturday in a World Cup qualifier — with the away tie against Slovenia to come tomorrow — would conclude that Rooney’s performance does not merit his retention.
Eric Dier, rested to protect his hamstring, is the obvious replacement.
Southgate may argue that the brave thing to do in this scenario — given the clamour, the questions, the debate he is facing — is to keep faith with the captain.
“I’ve got to make decisions which are right for the team, and whenever you select a team, with England, you’re going to leave some out,” said Southgate.
“You look at the bench and there are guys that are playing every week in the Premier League, and so you have to be prepared to do that, that’s part and parcel of the job.”
When asked what was the biggest decision he has made in his managerial career so far, Southgate answered: “Making some really close friends redundant. That’s probably as big as you can get.”
It is. That referred to the job cuts he oversaw during his three-year stint in charge of Middlesbrough, which ended in relegation.
It is an experience that has not only shaped Southgate but has understandably stayed with him.
Southgate knows that it would be a significant moment if he were to be the England manager to drop Rooney.
Given that he is definitely in charge only for another three matches, does he really want to be the man who, effectively, signals the beginning of the end for the country’s record goalscorer as an international player?
Added to that is the fact that Southgate is a former international teammate of Rooney, who he presented with a ‘cap’ during the week to mark his becoming his country’s most capped outfield player with 117 appearances, just eight behind goalkeeper Peter Shilton’s all-time record, so there is an emotional attachment between them.
Against Malta, Rooney struggled to impose himself in the midfield role he wants to make his own to prolong his career.
He lost the ball on occasions against a team joint 176th in the Fifa rankings, was caught in possession and was fortunate not to be punished — possibly even with a red card — for a reckless first-half tackle on Andre Schembri, although the Malta captain later exonerated him from any blame.
Dier was left out because he is recovering from a hamstring problem but should be fit enough to face Slovenia.
“Eric was definitely a player we wanted to protect in today’s game, he’s had hamstring injuries, so playing two games in quick succession was going to be difficult,” Southgate said.
“I wrote the team that I thought would start 10 days ago and we ended up five short! So, always with international management, you have some lovely ideas about what you’d like to do and where you’d like to go and the realities are often very different. The best thing for us is to assess everybody, see who’s available and have a look at the Slovenia game and check what we see is what we get.”
Five short? Presumably Southgate was referring to Dier, Raheem Sterling, Adam Lallana, Luke Shaw and Nathaniel Clyne.
He was also without Danny Drinkwater, Harry Kane and Jack Butland. So where does Rooney fit in when those players return and, more immediately, does he deserve to play ahead of Dier and Jordan Henderson, man of the match against Malta? Maybe Southgate will change the shape of the team but, even then, he has a problem.
Does he really want to move Dele Alli away from the No. 10 role?
It seems the England manager is already in danger of shuffling things around to try to shoe-horn Rooney into his team.
Southgate defended Rooney, declaring himself “pleased with his performance” and claiming,
“I felt the role he was asked to play he fulfilled. Him and Jordan Henderson as a pair did exactly as we hoped so Slovenia is a completely different game, we are likely to be playing against a different tactical system, and away from home, so we have got to assess all of those things to pick the right team for that game.”
That left the door open for Rooney to be left out but, if he were to drop him tomorrow and England do not get the right result, it would be seen as a gamble that had failed.
Southgate rowed back on a comment he made before the match when, referring to whether Rooney can play for England if he is not starting regularly for Manchester United, he said: “I think the longer the situation goes where you are not playing with your club, it becomes more difficult.”
When this was raised post-match, Southgate explained: “I think at this moment in time that’s irrelevant. Part of that is because we’ve got 30 per cent of the Premier League eligible for England. Of that, some don’t want to play, of that some aren’t good enough to play, and you’ve got a captain who is desperate to lead on and off the field and continues to make outstanding contribution to that group of players. So that was why he was selected. What’s happening at United for this week is not as important.”
England have called up Arsenal’s Kieran Gibbs to replace Ryan Bertrand, who damaged his hamstring against Malta, while Tottenham Hotspur will be concerned that Danny Rose does not aggravate his own tight hamstring. There will be no replacement for Phil Jagielka, with Michael Keane in the squad. Sunderland goalkeeper Jordan Pickford has been called into the squad after Tom Heaton withdrew because of injury.
