SVEN-GÖRAN ERIKSSON’S PLAYERS were united in their disappointment on behalf of Michael Owen last night after the England forward was taken off on a stretcher with suspected cruciate ligament damage to his right knee, his World Cup apparently over.
“Losing Michael is a real blow,” Wayne Rooney, who made his first start at the World Cup finals, said. “Michael is a very important player for us and you know he will always get you goals. It was a big, big blow to see him injured.”
Joe Cole struck a sombre note. “He’s had a difficult few months with injury and it looks like he’s going to have another battle now,” he said. “Our thoughts are with him and his family.”
While the head coach restricted himself to the cautious comment that Owen’s tournament “may be” over, the striker’s depressed reaction painted a more painful picture. “He is really down in the dressing-room and he’ll need the boys to support him,” Steven Gerrard, Owen’s former Liverpool colleague, said. On television, Alan Shearer confessed to receiving a text from Owen in which he said that “he was in real pain”.
With Eriksson bringing only four strikers to Germany — when Rooney’s participation was in doubt, Owen’s fitness was questionable and Theo Walcott was untried — the Swede is now confronted by a severe shortage of options in attack. While he professed a lack of concern at his meagre resources, he must surely rue his failure to select Jermain Defoe, the Tottenham Hotspur striker.
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“I’m very sorry for Michael, but I’m also very, very happy with the Rooney situation,” Eriksson said. “We’ve also got Walcott, who has not played yet, and many players who can take that role behind the striker. Steven Gerrard and Joe Cole can both play there and they scored against Sweden, so I’m not worried.” An injury now to Rooney or Peter Crouch, however, would be devastating.
Rooney lasted 69 minutes on his comeback, but his reaction to being substituted was immature and furious as he punched the dugout and threw a water bottle. “I asked him about that after the game and he said he was disappointed because he felt he should have played better in the second half,” Eriksson said. “It was not a problem at all. He could have played longer, but I can’t risk over-working him because I don’t want to miss him.”
For his part, the 20-year-old expressed satisfaction with his run-out. “It was nice to get back out there playing again,” Rooney said. “I thought we played well in the first half but the tempo dropped a bit in the second. We are just happy that we came out of it as group winners. My fitness has never been a problem. I feel good and I felt I could have played longer out there. Scoring will come.”
Joe Cole conceded that England cannot afford to repeat their sloppy defending against Ecuador on Sunday. “We should have killed the game off,” he said. “There’s a lot for us to work on because we can’t make those sort of mistakes against Ecuador. It’s going to be tough because they’ve put in two terrific performances so far, but we’re in the knockout stages now and this is where the business starts.”
Confident that “this will be the last time we concede from a set-piece,” Cole was the epitome of chirpiness after his 25-yard goal. In a rare display of pique, however, Eriksson declared himself “a little bit annoyed” with his players for presenting Sweden with two such gifts, although it came with a caveat. “The most important thing is that we won the group. That is what we have talked about since coming to Germany. It was our big target,” he said.