Gareth Southgate has dropped Wayne Rooney for their next crunch in Slovenia. When the Football Association appointed Gareth Southgate as England’s interim manager there were many questions in everyone’s mind however they were just waiting anxiously what is in score next?
Currently Wayne Rooney is the only senior player in England’s team and Southgate immediately placed him as the captain and then promptly dropped the man from his most important game of his four match tenure. Now people actually doubt his decision and at least Rooney would not be happy with this sudden decision of Southgate. On becoming as the interim manager Southgate’s first decision was to ensure Rooney kept the armband and he made this choice as he know that he may not be around in five games and so to displace the Manchester United legend only for the next manager to reinstate his captaincy.
This action would ridicule the man and will create problems for his own. With Rooney now out in the game Southgate will replace him with Jordan Henderson who will be playing as captain. Eric Dier returns to his anchor role in midfield and Southgate has defined this action as tactical speaking at a recent press conference.
As per Rooney’s current form is he is not good enough and this has been the way for solid 12-18 months and Southgate’s decision to keep Rooney out is to show powers that he has a backbone. Rooney has lost that spark and he should be good enough to play in midfield but he isn’t proving his worth. At the same time look at the performance of Jordan Henderson, Dele Alli and Rooney against Malta, only two of them were driving the team forward and Rooney was not one of them.
Rooney is a lot down the career continuum and he doesn’t have the ability to pass the ball forward anymore, drive the team and score important goals. Rooney has even forgotten the penalty area and has lost his touches now its sideways and backwards. At 30 years of age Rooney will have to leave United if he has to enjoy his last 4-5 years in the game and his future is in central midfield. If he wants to continue to represent England then he needs to drop down in class and play for Everton or West Ham type of teams to enjoy and carry on his career.
Now let’s look and closely watch whether Southgate’s decision to drop Rooney will pay off or not?
