Roy Hodgson said Wayne Rooney had not been distracted by the England goal-scoring record on a night when the striker scored but missed chances during the 5-0 home win over San Marino and supporters hijacked an online poll to vote the goalkeeper Joe Hart as the man of the match.
Hart took 63% of the vote on the website of the England sponsor Vauxhall as fans recognised his flawless performance against the team that is ranked as the worst in the world by Fifa. Hart, of course, had nothing to do and the jape chimed with some of the themes of the evening – principally, San Marino’s slapstick performance and the desire of many supporters to see the funny side.
The England midfielder Jack Wilshere was named as the official man of the match by the TV pundits and he played his part, particularly in the second half, in over-running the visitors. The substitutes Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Adam Lallana were also prominent, together with Rooney and his strike partner Danny Welbeck.
Rooney scored the second goal, from the penalty spot, as he moved onto 42 international goals, seven short of Sir Bobby Charlton’s all-time mark for the country. But Rooney also missed two one-on-one chances in the second-half – the first, when his chip did not have enough on it; the second, when he failed to dribble around the goalkeeper Aldo Simoncini. Rooney could not beat Simoncini on other occasions.
“The record won’t play on Wayne’s mind,” Hodgson, the England manager, said. “How old is he? [29 later in the month.] We’d like to think, with the way he is and the footballer he is, he’s got a good few years in him yet. There are plenty of games left. I don’t think we should put any pressure on him to reach targets early.
“He got in a lot of times tonight. His runs were very good. He’s a bit disappointed with the chip. He thought that was on. I’m more than happy with him. It was another good captain’s performance. He was solid throughout.”
Hodgson substituted the Liverpool players Jordan Henderson and Raheem Sterling at half-time but he denied that had anything to do with the fall-out from the Daniel Sturridge controversy. Liverpool have been angry at how Sturridge was injured on England duty in September and the manager, Brendan Rodgers, had made it clear that the striker would not be available for San Marino or Sunday’s qualifier in Estonia.
“To be fair to Brendan, when I spoke to him about Daniel, we knew he wouldn’t be ready,” Hodgson said. “We didn’t talk about the other two [Henderson and Sterling]. It was our decision to bring them off.
“With the wealth of talent we have in attacking areas, it was nice to take people like Sterling, Henderson and Welbeck off. They might play an important role for us against Estonia.”
