Rooney: Can He Get Back In The England Team?
Sun:AT £100million, it will be by far the most expensive line-up of understudies in the history of English football.
Some of the most stellar names in the business, with a total of 371 caps between them — and all kicking nothing more than their heels as England kick off against Estonia at Wembley on October 13.
Such has been the success of Steve McClaren’s revamped side, David Beckham and Wayne Rooney will be left to rest their “goldenballs” on the bench as England head towards Euro 2008 next summer.
New stars Micah Richards, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Gareth Barry all look likely to retain their places following Wednesday’s drubbing of Russia — England’s FOURTH successive 3-0 qualifying victory.
And that will leave the Old Guard surplus to requirements.
So, on the bench, we will find the Magnificent Seven of Beckham (£10m — because of the shirts), Rooney (£30m), Gary Neville (£2.5m), Frank Lampard (£25m), Owen Hargreaves (£20m), David James (£2.5m), Peter Crouch (£10m).
No, doubt, they will find much to talk about — maybe even the possibility of an outbreak of food poisoning among the first team similar to the epidemic that decimated Spurs at the end of the 2005-2006 season.
For far too long England’s weakness — apart from minor irritations like red cards, missed penalties and huge, hoofed, goalkeeping clearances that fatally fail to make any contact with the ball — has been a lack of depth to the squad.
While Italy, France, Argentina and Brazil have 20 or so players of, or approaching, world class, England have struggled. Even against Russia the subs included players such as Wes Brown, Phil Neville, Alan Smith, Stewart Downing and Andrew Johnson.
No disrespect to them — except, of course, it is — but how many players of that calibre would feature in a squad from the world’s Big Four? Now, though, we will have an abundance of riches once such men as Beckham and Rooney return from injury. To many, it seems inconceivable Rooney might have to play second fiddle to big Emile Heskey’s double bass.
If anyone had suggested a couple of weeks ago this would be the scenario by the time we got round to Estonia and then Russia in Moscow on October 17, they would have been carted off to the local sanitarium.
And yet Rooney, amazingly, hasn’t scored a competitive goal for England since his brace in the 4-2 defeat of Croatia at Euro 2004. This is in marked contrast to nine in his first 13 starts.
In the last 20 games, he has managed to find the net just three times — all in friendlies. In those, he partnered Michael Owen ten times with a goal return of six (Owen 5, Rooney 1).
Yet in just six starts with Peter Crouch, Owen and the Liverpool striker have shared ten goals. And in 15 starts with Heskey, there’ve been 15 goals (Owen 12, Heskey 3).
There are lies, damned lies and statistics but this would seem conclusive proof Owen is far more productive when he plays alongside a more orthodox target man.
This, then, is the conundrum McClaren faces. On the basis that Owen-Heskey works — and Rooney can’t buy a goal at the moment — the England boss must stick with the Wigan striker. To many, this will be heresy. To them, Rooney brings so much more to the team than goals.
Here is a modern-day footballer, a performer who links both play and players and one integral to England hopes — especially against the world’s leading sides at major tournaments.
This may prove to be the case. But, for the moment, he is going to have to wait his turn.
A spell on the bench, in fact, will tell us so much more about Rooney the team player.
McClaren has alighted on a winning formula purely by chance — it’s serendipity.
He did not take these decisions about Heskey, Barry, Wright-Phillips and Richards — they were forced on him by injury.
But now he DOES have choices to make. And not just about Rooney — about Beckham, Gary Neville, Lampard and Hargreaves as well.
All still have a part to play though it will become increasingly apparent that Beckham’s trans-Atlantic commuting and the Hackney Marsh level of football in the States will inevitably count against him.
Wright-Phillips has, so far, taken his chance, though the former skipper will travel to the end of the world to pick up those three caps to take him to the magic ton — and, no doubt, the launch of the Beckham 100 range of sunglasses, aftershave, sarongs, etc.
Among the other bench-warmers, Gary Neville replaced by Richards, Lampard by the Steven Gerrard-friendly Barry and squeezed-out Hargreaves — can be viewed as back-up for as long as the new generation continue to produce results.
That is only fair and they will understand it — just as so many other England candidates stood in patient line as Beckham, Neville and Lampard clocked up the appearances.
But they will also suspect that, this being England, the odd wheel or two is bound to fall off at some time.
For McClaren, it’s an extremely interesting position. We will see his managerial qualities, his ability to pick the right team when he finds himself having too many players to choose from rather than too few.
And whether or not he can keep all the superstars on the bench happy.
