Wayne Rooney needs two goals to be England's all-time top goal scorer.
He stands on the shoulders of giants, and towers above his teammates. Wayne Rooney scored his 48th goal for England during their 3-2 win in Slovenia on Sunday. Rooney's late winner not only preserved England's perfect Group E record in Euro 2016 qualifying, but also underlined the captain's indelible importance to his country.
Barring injury, September against San Marino should see Rooney surpass Gary Lineker, level on 48, and Bobby Charlton, who is England's all-time record goal scorer on 49, to reach a half-century. It would confirm a considerable revival in fortunes for Rooney. The 2014 World Cup saw his place in the national team opened up for public debate for the first time since he made his breakthrough in 2003. Now, in scoring terms, he utterly dwarfs others in the squad -- the rest of the squad that travelled to Slovenia have scored just 18 between them.
Danny Welbeck, on 14 goals in total, is the second-highest-scoring active international but was absent in Slovenia. No other current England player has more than the five netted by Theo Walcott.
A year ago against Italy, in the furnace heat of Manaus, Rooney was shunted out left while manager Roy Hodgson preferred Daniel Sturridge as central striker, with Raheem Sterling as the No. 10 at the tip of a diamond. Rooney ended a perspiration-soaked evening lambasted for a loss of defensive discipline in the move that led to Mario Balotelli's winner, though the dissenters were forgetting the earlier key pass that led to Sturridge's equaliser.Twelve months on, such young pretenders have dropped way behind Rooney.
Sturridge has suffered two serious injuries. Sterling, though much improved in Ljubljana from the previous week's friendly in Dublin, no longer performs with the unbridled innocence of youth. He has spent much of 2015 looking uncomfortable under the spotlight, while a summer of Manchester City and Liverpool wrestling over him has only just begun.
The finishing quality Sterling exhibited on Sunday when ballooning a fourth-minute golden chance did not suggest his worth as "beyond £50 million" as his current club are said to value him.
England's other forward in that adventurous but doomed World Cup performance against Italy was Welbeck, still England's top scorer in Euro 2016 qualifying with six goals, but whose progress at Arsenal has been slowed by injury.
Without the injured Welbeck and Sturridge, Rooney faced no competition for the central role. Charlie Austin and Jamie Vardy, who began the month uncapped, were called up by Hodgson for the friendly against Republic of Ireland and the game in Slovenia but offered little more than making up the numbers. Harry Kane, on under-21 duty at the European championship this month, is the big hope for the future, having scored just 78 seconds into his debut against Lithuania earlier this year.
The manager's faith in his captain sounds as clear as it has ever been. "We can rely on that man," said Hodgson. "I'd have liked him to get a hat trick today so all the talk of the record would have been finished, but he has plenty of time on his side to achieve that still."
When badly messing up two golden chances on Sunday, it had seemed as if history was weighing on Rooney before he showed precision and calm when converting the late chance to belatedly win a match that looked to have been claimed by the defensive problems that still clearly plague England.
A pair of thunderbolts took the Arsenal midfielder up to place second in scoring for his country from midfield in this squad, behind Andros Townsend's rather lowly three. Jordan Henderson and Fabian Delph are yet to notch in 28 matches between them, while James Milner's single goal in 54 internationals might be alarming for Liverpool fans, but also reflects a status as his country's utility man.
Adam Lallana's 45 minutes on Sunday revealed genuine playmaking qualities, but England need a yet more incisive touch.
When England get to France next summer, continued reliance on Rooney will remain worrisome, especially when considering his tournament credentials. Brazil, where he scored one goal and set up the other of the pathetic total of two scored by England, was perhaps the best of his showings in the four finals he has featured in since being one of the stars of Euro 2004. Each has seen him arrive as if exhausted by his season at Manchester United, or worse, as was the case at the 2006 World Cup, unfit to play.
Kane's performances in the Czech Republic at the European Under-21 Championship for Gareth Southgate's team will be instructive but when Sturridge and Welbeck come back in tow, the forward line should not be a problem. Hodgson has 12 months to find further goals from within his team. A Plan B beyond Rooney is required, even when he is scoring. Leaning too heavily on him could be fatal.
Source: espn
