Sam Allardyce's England career got off to a winning start, and that's all that matters! Well that's if you can ignore just how piss poor the performance by England was. And if that wasn't bad enough the manager revealed that he doesn't even decide what position his captain plays in.
There'll be plenty of people out there who question the selection of Rooney and his continued captaincy, both at club and international level, but we aren't here to discuss that today. No what we want to cover is the fact that the manager should probably be making tactical and positional decisions.
Rooney was named as a midfielder in the initial squad announcement but Allardyce suggested before the game he'd be used in the number 10 role, as he is at Old Trafford, however the former Everton player was definitely playing in the middle of the park and after the game the manager bizarrely suggested it was Rooney, and not him, who picked the 30 year old's position:
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"This is the most decorated outfield player in England. He's won everything at Manchester United, more or less, and at Champions League and domestic level. I think that he holds a lot more experience at international football than me as an international manager.
"Using his experience with a team and playing as a team member, it's not for me to say where he's going to play. It's up to me to ask whether he's doing well in that position and contributing. If so, great.
"We'd like to get him into goalscoring positions more. He's been a goalscorer all his life and I want him to do that again, but he reads a game as he reads it. He read it very well..."
The former Bolton Wanderers boss even said he didn't think Rooney would play as deep as he did adding, "I must admit, he did play a little deeper than I thought he'd play today, but I was pleased with his performance."
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Oddly the player seemingly had no idea it was up to him where he was playing saying, "That's where Sam wanted me to play. We worked on it through the week. A lot of people thought I was going to play higher, but I think it suits me in this team for the way we play. So I've no problems playing there. I thought I contributed to the game."
So now we've no idea who decided the former Everton player should be a midfielder but what we do know is that it didn't work. England were shit and Harry Kane got little help with no one playing in the number 10 role until Dele Alli came on and there was a clear 10 with Rooney staying alongside Eric Dier.
In future can he manage just pick the team please.
(Via Telegraph)
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Football, Sam Allardyce, England, Wayne Rooney