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It looks like Gareth Southgate is finally ready to push Wayne Rooney out of the England team
Wayne Rooney was once the youngest player in history to turn out for the Three Lions. He was handed his first cap at the tender age of 17, but now, 14 years later it looks like Rooney's time is up in an England shirt. He's 31 years old, he's fallen out of favor at Manchester United, and he's been on the fringes of the national team since their Euro 2016 failure. Now, he's been left out of England's latest squad (even before picking up an injury), and he's been removed as England's captain.
Rooney can't keep up at the club level, he's not playing enough to merit inclusion in the national team, his career is on a steady decline, and he's been passed up by the younger options in England's team. Simply put, his time is up as an England player.
This is isn't an "I believe Rooney needs to be phased out" thing either. This is England manager Gareth Southgate signaling as much. It looks actually done.
Southgate's statements in the press seem to have made it clear that tradition will be tossed out the window, and under the new regime, past performance doesn't matter: it's all about how players perform in the here and now.
And that's not very good for Rooney.
Southgate himself gave a strong hint as to his former teammate and captain's future during preparations for England's qualifiers this week.
“We have to look at Wayne as a No. 10, which is his predominant role,” said Southgate. “In the last two games we’ve played Dele Alli there and we’ve played Adam Lallana there. Both are playing very well, scoring and assisting for their clubs. Ross Barkley has been playing very well for his club. So there’s competition. I can’t dress it up any other way. There are some very good players and it’s a battle to get in this squad.”
There's the rub. Other players in the frame are not just playing, they're playing well, scoring and assisting. Those are four things Wazza simply can't match at this point in his career. Not only is he buried at the end of United's bench, the numbers simply aren't backing him up when he does get minutes.
Younger players like Alli, Lallana and Ross Barkley are all playing more than Rooney, they're playing better, and most importantly -- they're young. Rooney may be just 31 years old, but he's got a veteran's years in those legs, and it's started to show in dramatic fashion in recent years.
The case for Rooney comes down to one the nebulous idea that his presence is important for his leadership qualities and experience. After all, ever since Steven Gerrard retired after the 2014 World Cup, Rooney has been the England captain. But Southgate doesn't seem to care about that anymore.
“We have this thing about ‘an England captain’ but really the captain is the person who is captain in the next game, isn’t it?" Southgate postulated. "Or the game on the next day. I always just assume you pick a team for a game and the captain of that game is the captain.”
Without the need for Rooney as a figurehead leader in the dressing room, logic follows that there's really no need for him in the England team period. After all, if he can't contribute on the pitch, and he's no good in an inspirational role, why waste a spot that could be used for any one of England's burgeoning youngsters?
England are in an important transition period now. They haven't truly challenged for international trophies in decades, and their recent failures on the world stage have stacked up higher and higher. Now, they're sitting on a new 'golden generation' of sorts, and there's a palpable sense, at least coming from Southgate, that the time has come to shake up the status quo and to embrace a new way of moving forward.
“There’s a harsh lens needed on some of the things we are doing.
“We need to look at who the top teams are and how we get to their level. I was in a team that made a semifinal [at Euro 96] and that has happened once since 1990. It’s my job to analyze what hasn’t been right and then show the lads a pathway. They will then decide whether they want to come on it or not. I think we need to be pretty brutal about the way we look at it.”
Brutal means dropping players who can't contribute, and that likely means no future for Rooney. If he's not up to the standard at Manchester United, how can he be up to the standard of England? A player who can't get minutes for his club simply can't be considered for inclusion. It doesn't matter what their last name is, or how much they've contributed in the past.
Southgate's fully aware of where England stand as compared to their international counterparts, and he hasn't been shy in communicating those realities to his fellow Englishmen. Things aren't sweet for the founders of the game, and he knows it.
“That drives me on as much as anything: the need to start recognizing where we really are and how we bridge the gap," said Southgate. "Sometimes we get wrapped up in the profile of our league, yet eight to 10 years ago we were always involved in Champions League semifinals and finals. That just isn’t the case any more.
“I remember going to the World Cup in Brazil, scouting for the FA, and watching all the montages before games to show the highlights of previous tournaments and it suddenly struck me: ‘We’re not on any, none of our players are on them.’ We think we’re whatever, but I’m looking at the screen and there’s all the Brazilians, the Spaniards, the French, and we’re not there. And I’m almost sinking into my seat because you walk in there thinking you’re part of England, massively proud, but actually on the world stage, we’re not there at the moment. And I think part of trying to affect that is to start saying: ‘Listen, these are the realities.’”
These are the realities for England. They've fallen woefully behind comparatively, and things have looked bleak for the national team for a while. Now, they've got an extremely talented crop of young players who could just be the ones to change all that, and Rooney stands in the way of their forward progress.
That's not to say that England's problem is Rooney. Getting rid of Rooney won't "fix" England by any stretch. They have to do a lot more than that and Rooney, a player who did incredible things for the Three Lions, shouldn't be made the scapegoat. But he also shouldn't be the future. He shouldn't even be the present and Southgate has come around on this.
It looks like the Wayne Rooney Era is finished.
