Wayne Rooney has stressed his belief in England’s talented crop of youngsters ahead of their crunch World Cup qualifier against Poland on Tuesday.
The Manchester United forward racked up his 37th England goal against Montenegro on Friday to put them in pole position to qualify automatically for Brazil 2014 but the headlines went to Andros Townsend, who scored on his international debut.
Rooney, himself once England’s next bright spark, believes there is much to come from his compatriots.
“We have got some very exciting players, young exciting players,” Rooney told the FA website after Friday’s 4-1 win.
“I think all the talk about ‘there’s not enough good English players’ – well, we have got six, seven or eight young players.
“Andros did great, he’s an exciting player with a great future and then you have [Danny] Welbeck, [Daniel] Sturridge, [Phil] Jones, [Chris] Smalling, [Jack] Wilshere, [Alex] Oxlade-Chamberlain, [Theo] Walcott – the players we have got there, there’s some talent.”
Rooney should be joined again by club-mate Welbeck while United defender Jones is expected to replace the suspended Kyle Walker.
With few injury concerns, England manager Roy Hodgson has warned his side of complacency against an already-eliminated Poland.
“We must make sure we complete it against Poland and I am sure we will,” he said.
“Even though they are out of the running, I can’t imagine they will take their foot off the pedal.”
Poland denied England qualification for the 1974 World Cup in the final game thanks to the heroics of Polish keeper Jan Tomaszewski.
Captain Jakub Blaszczykowski thinks the support – 18,000 tickets at Wembley have been sold to Poland fans – will inspire his team this time around.
“We want to thank them with a good game and the right result,” he said.
Image courtesy of YahooUK video, with thanks.
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