Hodgson will change team for Rooney

Roy Hodgson (pictured) will return Wayne Rooney to the England side on Tuesday
16 June 2012

Roy Hodgson hailed his strikers for their goalscoring efforts in England's thrilling 3-2 win over Sweden on Friday night - but confirmed Wayne Rooney will return for the qualification decider with co-hosts Ukraine on Tuesday.

Hodgson's bold decision to select Andy Carroll paid off when the Liverpool man put England ahead with a first-half header. Danny Welbeck secured a famous win when he flicked home a cross from Theo Walcott - who also scored the equaliser - 12 minutes from time.

But Hodgson said: "I welcome those kind of selection problems, I was really pleased with the performance of the front players. But Wayne Rooney is a special player and, frankly, it will be hard to leave him out. I'm afraid you expect him to get back into the team when the suspension is served."

The statement merely underlined what a massive role Rooney is being afforded in the Hodgson era.

He must have gone through every emotion in the stands on Friday night though, as England established a winning position, tossed away the initiative with some chronic defending, and finally claimed a vital three points thanks to Hodgson's match-changing introduction of Walcott.

"Theo's contribution was enormous," said Hodgson.

"To come on as a sub, score and set up the winner means he'll be very happy."

Two goals at the start of the second half from Olof Mellberg turned the game on its head, as well as earning the former Aston Villa defender a man-of-the-match award he did not want.

"It doesn't mean a lot," he said.

"It feels a little bit strange to win something when you lose a match and go out of a tournament."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in