Rooney benched, Vardy out for Spain clash
Rooney benched, Vardy out for Spain clash
Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane will start for England against Spain
in Alicante on Friday after Roy Hodgson revealed he plans to rest
captain Wayne Rooney against the European champions.
Hodgson’s attacking options have been further hampered by an injury
to on-form Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy that will almost certainly
see him miss out.
“Vardy is struggling with a knock that he picked up on Saturday. We
are monitoring it and working on it, but it looks unlikely that he will
play tomorrow,” Hodgson said on Thursday.
Vardy has scored 12 goals in as many Premier League matches this
season. By contrast, Rooney has just two league goals to his name with
Manchester United.
However, Hodgson insisted it was his desire to experiment ahead of
next year’s European Championships and not Rooney’s form that was the
reason for him starting on the bench on Friday.
“Wayne is an emotionally important figure for the team,” said Hodgson.
“He won’t start the game tomorrow, that is for the very simple reason
that we are looking for different combinations and he is pencilled in
for the game against France (on Tuesday).”
Rooney admitted he never likes looking on from the sidelines, but is
happy to take the hit to his pride if it means improving England’s
chances of success in France next summer.
“As a player you want to play but you have to understand there are bigger things to consider in terms of tournament football.”
England stormed through their qualifying group with a perfect set of 10 wins from 10 games.
However, impressive qualifying campaigns have been met ultimately
with disappointment on the big stage in recent years and Rooney
acknowledged they face a big step up in quality against Spain and France
in the coming week.
“Our main objective was to quality. We’ve done that and now we have to move on,” he added.
