Wayne Rooney might have marked his first game as England’s permanent captain with his 41st goal for his country, but Roy Hodgson, the manager, admitted last night that the “responsibility weighing on his shoulders” had served to inhibit the Manchester United striker’s performance.
Though Rooney retained his composure to score a penalty won by Raheem Sterling midway through the second half, he was largely overshadowed by the Liverpool teenager and his club-mate, Daniel Sturridge.
Hodgson admitted that it had not been the 28-year-old’s finest night, but insisted that he would not be drawn into a knee-jerk assessment of his capabilities either as a captain or as a player on the basis of one game.
“It was a big night for Wayne,” Hodgson said. “[There was] a lot of responsibility weighing on his shoulders, not least with the penalty he had to take and knew he had to score. It is early days. If every time we play I’ve either got to praise a player to the skies or criticise a player and say it’s not going to work, that’s a bit harsh.
“Wayne will tell you he can play better than that and have better games. Of course he can, we know what kind of player he is. But you’re not always going to give the best performance and you do not become a bad player if you do not put in the performance you wanted.”
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Rooney appeared broadly to agree with that assessment, acknowledging that all England’s players had rather more to offer than they managed. “In the first half we moved the ball quite well, but the second half we started sloppy,” he said.
“We all could have done better, but it was a night where it was important to win.”
It was not, of course — it was a friendly — but there was, at least, a measure of revenge for Rooney in his nascent feud with Vegard Forren, the Norway defender who had labelled him “chubby” before the game. As the teams emerged for the second half, Rooney informed Forren that it was he who carrying a little extra timber.
Rather more serious is the vexed question of whether the system Hodgson appears to favour at present — with Rooney and Sturridge employed together — elicits the best from either man; certainly, Rooney was sufficiently subdued to suggest that they are not necessarily a natural partnership.
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