Wayne Rooney has talked to the younger members of the England squad to warn them about the atmosphere at Celtic Park and ensure they are not intimidated in the friendly against Scotland.
The England captain has taken players like Raheem Sterling, Ross Barkley and Saido Berahino to one side after admitting the din whipped up by the home fans can “take you by surprise”. England have not played in Glasgow since 1999 and confront a resurgent Scotland who have lost only once – away to the world champions, Germany – in 10 matches under Gordon Strachan. Roy Hodgson is expected to blood a number of inexperienced players in his team’s final fixture of 2014.
Rooney has visited this arena twice with Manchester United in European competition and is ready for an awkward evening. Around 52,000 tickets have been sold and England have returned a large number of their allocation. Police on both sides of the border are on the alert for potential crowd trouble. All leave in Scotland has been cancelled and extra back-up has been drafted in from Dundee and Edinburgh after there were 230 arrests 15 years ago.
“I’ve spoken to a few of the younger players to make sure they are ready for the start of the game because, if you are not, it can take you by surprise,” Rooney said. “It will be a big test for us. I’ve played up here a few times and you know at the start of the game their fans will be really up for it. It will be quite intimidating if you’re not used to it, so I wanted to make sure they’re ready for it to get them settled.
“Everyone knows this stadium. The fans here have a great reputation of making it an intimidating place to come. It was when I first came out here to play so I wanted to pass on my experience. I found it both intimidating and inspiring; it’s the kind of atmosphere you want to experience as a player.
“I’ve been to other grounds where the atmosphere is more aggressive, like in Istanbul, but this is ‘football’-intimidating. I don’t think it’ll be like the games 20 years ago but there will still be an edge to it. You have to be ready for the start of the game and I’m sure we will be.”
Hodgson suggested there had been no request from club managers to rest any players before the resumption of the Premier League this weekend. He will grant Berahino a senior debut at some stage, with Fraser Forster expected to start in goal, Stewart Downing to play some part and Luke Shaw to be drafted in at left-back despite recent concerns over a slight groin problem. Chris Smalling is likely to partner Gary Cahill in the centre of defence, replacing Phil Jagielka from Saturday’s 3-1 win over Slovenia, with England hoping this fixture offers a more realistic gauge of their post-World Cup progress than what has proved a weak Euro 2016 qualifying group to date.
“I’m expecting to see a classic game,” said the England manager. “We are playing teams in qualifying who maybe accept we have the better players, so they seek to restrict their attacking movements in order to frustrate us. In this game both teams have the quality to aspire to win, creating chances when they have the ball, and that will lead to some counter-attacking football. It will be different to the games against San Marino and Estonia, when defeat wasn’t our major concern but scoring goals might have been.”
Strachan concurred, stressing this will be far removed from the blood and thunder occasions which marked out this fixture in previous eras. He described his own side’s critical 1-0 qualifying win over the Republic of Ireland last Friday as “frantic” rather than aggressive. “The game has changed completely in the last 30 years,” he said. “You cannot kick lumps out of people anymore. If someone elbowed you in the past you’d just wipe the blood away from your face and get on with it. But that kind of intimidation in football is completely gone.
“On Friday, people went toe to toe. There was an intensity there but there wasn’t a piece of nastiness in it at all. Nobody was backing down and that’s what happens when two teams lock horns and don’t want to get beat. It was just people who were scared of getting beat and wouldn’t give an inch. I would have called it a really good game of football. But this game is not as big now as it was six months ago. The main focus of the Scottish people over the last two months was that game the other night. This is a game to be enjoyed.”
The manager qualified that last sentiment by admitting his players’ desperate desire to take on England has forced him to abandon plans to make sweeping changes to the team who defeated Ireland. “The players that played the other night keep banging on that they are fit enough to play again,” he said. “Nobody wants to be rested.”
Scott Brown and Charlie Mulgrew may be retained in midfield and while Derby’s Chris Martin will start up front, the attacking trio at the forward’s back may be unchanged from Friday.
