Rooney Mocks Former England Manager For Refusing To Play Him In His Preferred Position

 

Wayne Rooney claims Sam Allardyce allowed him to be “battered” when he said the forward played “wherever he wanted” for England.

Allardyce made the remarks immediately after England’s 1-0 win over Slovakia, when Adam Lallana netted the winner in the 95th minute.

England captain Rooney was roundly criticised after the game, in which he started on the left of midfield alongside Jordan Henderson and Eric Dier in a 4-3-3 formation before dropping deeper once Dele Alli was introduced as a substitute.

The Manchester United star bristled at the suggestion he felt he had carte blanche to operate wherever he wanted for the national team and revealed Allardyce apologised to him on the plane home from Trnava for suggesting as much to the media.

Sam came out and said I play where I want but it couldn’t be further from the truth, I play to instructions,” Rooney said.

“I got battered in many different ways for my performance, which I felt was actually a decent performance.
“I don’t pick myself, I haven’t ever picked myself. I didn’t come in and say: ‘I want to play here or there.’ I played where I was asked to play. That was a big misunderstanding and I seemed to get slaughtered for it. I suffered from that.

“He knew he had made a mistake. He said that to me on the plane home. That’s part of being involved at this level. He understood that quite early and unfortunately he doesn’t have the chance to rectify that now.”