England had their first relatively positive day for quite a while on Saturday afternoon.
The Three Lions beat Malta 2-0 at Wembley in Gareth Southgate’s first game as caretaker manager, thanks to goals from Daniel Sturridge and Dele Ali. It was hardly cause for an open-top bus parade, but by the standards of recent months, this was a successful afternoon.
The talk now might even be of a fresh era under the inoffensive Southgate, as the team attempt to put the humiliation of their defeat to Iceland behind them and move on from the fiasco of Sam Allardyce’s brief reign.
England have young, exciting players like Ali, Harry Kane and Marcus Rashford, and who knows, maybe Southgate is the man to lead them to a respectable quarter-final defeat on penalties at the World Cup?
If that’s to happen, the Wayne Rooney question will definitively have to be answered.
The England captain was booed by a section of the London crowd as he lined-up in the tunnel to lead the team out, and played poorly in central midfield.
Eric Dier was on the bench for today’s game and could come into the team to play Slovenia away on Tuesday, which would put Rooney’s position in jeopardy.
On ITV, Ryan Giggs was asked who should Southgate drop in order to bring in Dier.
Despite the answer clearly being “Wayne Rooney”, the former Manchester United winger avoided mentioning any names and instead spoke about how England managers have to make tough decisions.
In fairness to Giggs, he’s not the first pundit to dodge the Rooney question, but the exchange made for awkward television.
The discussion begins at 6:20 into the video.
https://youtu.be/Dsi1BhJvXc8?t=6m20s
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