Patient Rooney in no rush to end England career

There may be increasing questions over his place in the England team but captain Wayne Rooney insists he still has plenty to offer his country.

Rooney insists he has ‘a few years’ left in an England shirt and feels patience has become a key attribute in his game as he has matured.

With Roy Hodgson’s squad having a youthful dynamic to it these days, Rooney feels the presence of players like Joe Hart, Gary Cahill and himself is more important than ever.

Rooney missed the recent friendly double header with Germany and the Netherlands with a knee injury.

In his absence, both Spurs frontman Harry Kane and Leicester’s Jamie Vardy netted in the 3-2 win against the world champions in Berlin while the latter also scored in the 2-1 defeat to the Dutch at Wembley.

Rooney says he has done little wrong in and England shirt recently and the Three Lions all-time leading goalscorer is in no rush to call time on his international career.

“I’ve still got a few years left, I feel,” he told the PFA’s 4 The Player magazine.

“I’ll keep trying to, first and foremost, help the team be successful and if I can score the goals to help achieve that then that’ll be great.

“Over the last two years my form for England has been really good, I’ve scored a lot of goals. It’s a young team and obviously as captain you want to get a strong bond between everyone and I really feel there is that at the moment, everyone gets on really well.”

Rooney says the squad needs to have some elder statesmen in it to help the younger players along.

“You have myself, Joe Hart, Gary Cahill who are a little bit older and are there to help with anything but we’re all together all the time and I think the squad is in a very good place right now,” he added.

England are 9.00 to win Euro 2016 this summer while Hodgson’s squad are 1.80 to win Group B ahead of Wales, Russia and Slovakia.