England manager Roy Hodgson has defended Wayne Rooney after the Three Lions' unconvincing 1-0 win over Portugal, and maintains that his captain can play anywhere on the pitch.
Rooney ended the season with Manchester United in midfield, playing a key role as the club beat Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final at Wembley, but the 30-year-old was deployed in a central striker's role in England's final Euro 2016 warm-up friendly on Thursday.
Jamie Vardy and Harry Kane, who scored 49 Premier League goals between them for Leicester City and Tottenham in 2015-16, were subsequently pushed wide to accomodate Rooney but Hodgson has launched a robust defence of the United forward, and insists his selection dilemma is a good thing.
"You're talking about the player who has played 111 games for England and scored 53 goals so perhaps his best position is anywhere on the field.
"It's a good problem to have, shoehorning in attacking players. I don’t think for a long time that I’ve had that, a lot of good attacking players to shoehorn so you won’t find me complaining about that.
"You would find me complaining if we weren’t defending as a team, conceding lots of goals chances and every time we played we needed to score three to win a game so I've seen no evidence of that."
England face Russia in the opening game of Euro 2016 on June 11, and fly out to France on Monday.
..... - Goal