Axe falls on Rooney
LONDON. — Wayne Rooney will be left out of England’s starting line-up for their World Cup soccer qualifier in Slovenia tonight, according to Sky sources.
Rooney — the team captain and country’s leading goalscorer — will be named on the substitutes’ bench for the game in Ljubljana with interim boss Gareth Southgate likely to name Eric Dier and Jordan Henderson as his two deep-lying central midfielders.
It is understood Southgate was waiting to see if Dier and Henderson made it through a session at Tottenham’s training ground in Enfield yesterday morning before deciding on his team selection.
England beat Malta 2-0 in Southgate’s first game in charge on Saturday, but Rooney was booed by some sections of the Wembley crowd and Sky Sports pundit Alan Smith questioned whether the national side’s record goalscorer would keep his place for the Slovenia game.
Southgate, however, felt the criticism of Rooney was unjust and backed the Manchester United man to continue to play with pride for his country.
“The criticism of him is at times unfair,” he said.
“He ploughs on and plays with pride and captains his country with pride.
“I look back to John Terry, Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole. In their time with England they took an enormous amount of criticism and yet when you look at the number of caps they got they were the guys that kept turning out.
“They were the ones that really put themselves on the line when some other players would not put themselves forward in those moments and withdrew from squads when the going got tough.”
Southgate was expected to confirm details of who will captain England last night in his pre-match news conference.
He had earlier insisted that he has the bottle to axe Rooney.
The England captain has already been dropped at Manchester United this season by Jose Mourinho and interim England boss Southgate is facing calls to do likewise.
Rooney was jeered by some fans at Wembley on Saturday during England’s 2-0 win over Malta and former national team captain Alan Shearer has led calls for him to be dropped.
Southgate said he was “very pleased” with Rooney’s performance, but cited his time as manager of Middlesbrough, when he had to sack members of staff, as proof of his ability to make tough calls.
Southgate is expected to stick by his captain for today’s World Cup qualifier in Slovenia.
But he says he won’t hesitate to make the big decisions if he feels they are necessary.
“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 guys on the bench who are playing every week in the Premier League for their clubs,” said Southgate.
“You have to be prepared to do that - that’s part and parcel of the job.”
Southgate reckons having to make friends redundant following relegation at Middlesborough in 2009 gave him the inner strength to make tough decisions.
“Making some really close friends redundant, that’s probably as big as you can get,” he said.
Southgate has hinted that he won’t follow Mourinho’s lead for tomorrow’s game in Ljubljana — despite admitting before the Malta win that it is a problem if players are not featuring in their club sides.
“I think at this moment of time that (lack of football at United) is irrelevant,” he said.
“You’ve got a captain who is desperate to lead on and off the field and continues to make an outstanding contribution to this group of players.
“I was very pleased with his performance. I felt the role he was asked to play he fulfilled.
“He was asked to dictate the game, play with positional discipline which we thought was very important.
“Him and Jordan Henderson as a pair did exactly as we hoped.
“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 with all of the players to pick the right team for that game.”
Henderson leapt to the defence of his fellow midfielder saying: “Wayne is experienced enough to just concentrate on the football.
“He’s had criticism through a lot of his career, like a lot of players have, and he deals with it very well.
“He’s our captain and our leader and is fantastic player for both Manchester United and England.”
Southgate has called Arsenal leftback Kieran Gibbs into his squad after Ryan Bertrand sustained a hamstring injury in the first half against Malta.