Rooney highlights England improvement area

Captain Wayne Rooney insists England do not need to be more streetwise although he concedes they do need to manage games better at the European Championship.

The Three Lions, 9.50 to win the tournament, were criticised following Thursday’s 1-0 friendly win over Portugal.

Chris Smalling’s header ensured England got the job done but Roy Hodgson’s formation failed to deliver at Wembley.

Following the match, defender Eric Dier claimed England needed to learn from other teams’ “intelligent edge” but Rooney insists his side cannot change their game plan too much.

England’s young side are quietly confident of proving the doubters wrong this summer and Rooney believes they could benefit by just managing their matches better. He said: “[We need to] more understand the game and manage the game better. It’s normal: that comes with experience.

“Whether it’s stopping a quick free-kick, or – I’m not saying anything bad about foreign players – but they do it naturally better in terms of staying on the ground a bit longer, and almost making a decision for the referee which we haven’t been brought up to do. It’s a big difference for us to do that.”
“We can play better [than we did against Portugal], we can move the ball quicker. [We’ve had] three wins coming into the tournament but I still feel we have to [do] better.”