Wayne Rooney’s character lauded by Roy Hodgson after England win

Roy Hodgson praised Wayne Rooney’s strength of character after his captain retained his composure following a series of missed chances, and his discipline having been elbowed, to conjure the winner which hauled him level with Gary Lineker as England’s joint second-leading scorer.
Rooney, floored by Bostjan Cesar’s flailing arm moments earlier, pounced on Bojan Jokic’s mistake four minutes from time to slide his 48th goal for his country beyond Samir Handanovic and maintain England’s perfect record in Group E. The 29-year-old is one shy of Sir Bobby Charlton’s record, with San Marino awaiting in September when qualification can effectively be secured. His eight goals in 10 internationals have contributed heavily to the side’s unbeaten record this season.
The Manchester United striker had missed a flurry of opportunities earlier in a frantic contest illuminated by Jack Wilshere’s first goals for the national side. “Wayne Rooney’s performance says a lot of things about him as a man,” said Hodgson. “Just before he took that chance he had taken a nasty blow from an elbow, which could have decked many a player and led to him losing his discipline. But it didn’t and he simply got up and played on.
“The fact one or two chances had gone begging earlier also didn’t worry him because, when the ball fell to him four minutes from the end, he still stuck it away with aplomb. We can rely on that man. I’d have liked him to get a hat-trick today so all the talk of the record would have been finished, but he has plenty of time on his side to achieve that still.”
Lineker was quick to congratulate Rooney, who now boasts 28 goals in qualification games for the World Cup or European Championships, on his achievement. “I’m pleased to be joined by Wayne Rooney on 48 goals,” he said. “It seemed, during a five-minute spell in the second half, it might not happen when he struck two over the bar, but Wayne’s been a consistently excellent player over the years.
“I’m sure he will go on and surpass the great Sir Bobby Charlton. He’s still only 29 and he’s a formidable talent and he has a fabulous goalscoring record, especially in qualifiers.”
Cesar was not cautioned for the elbow flung at the striker as the captains clashed inside the penalty area just after Slovenia’s equaliser, which had tied the game at 2-2. The pair had tangled once before, in a friendly at Wembley in 2009 when the England striker had won a penalty despite appearing to connect heavily with Cesar’s ankle. The Slovenian was booked and had subsequently spent a lengthy spell on the sidelines, describing the tackle as “stupid, stupid foul” at the time.“We thought it could have been a penalty,” said Hodgson of the incident in Ljubljana. “But the referee handled the game well. Slovenia are a strong, physical, aggressive team: Fabian Delph took an elbow to his jaw and Raheem Sterling a nasty kick at the end of the game as well. But the players showed their resilience. The team spirit is getting better all the time. They didn’t leave much on the field in terms of effort and determination.”

Jack Wilshere lets fly to score his second goal. Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Images

While there was frustration at the nature of the first-half goal which meant England trailed at the break, stemming as it did from a Phil Jones throw-in deep in Slovenia’s half, Hodgson was hugely encouraged by the recovery mounted courtesy of Wilshere’s eye-catching brace. “His whole performance was quality,” said the manager. “I’m very happy with the goals he’s scored but, in the second half in particular, he controlled that midfield. If we can keep him fit and he can get plenty of PL [Premier League] matches and international matches, at his young age we think we’ve got a good player going forward. “We know we have excellent technicians in midfield in Wilshere, Jordan Henderson and Delph, James Milner and Adam Lallana, and that they’ve all got goals in them. Now they have to prove it. We’ll need their goals. We can’t just rely on our front players.”
The win means England have now gone 11 games unbeaten since their elimination from the World Cup in Brazil last June, with this their first season without defeat since 1990-91.
“The team has made progress,” added Hodgson. “It’s a good achievement, completing a season of 10 games with eight wins and two draws. That’s not been done for over 20 years. The players deserve some credit for that, and get plenty of credit from me. Now we have to keep building on it. We want to keep that unbeaten run going.”

The Raheem Sterling Supremacy is futile – Europe is full of equivalents

English football may eat its young, but at least it does so with a sense of grand, banquet-hall theatre. What stage are we at now in the collective devouring of Raheem Sterling? Stuffed and filleted, a single caramelised Braeburn clenched between his teeth, Sterling has spent the last few days nudging his way a little further down that familiar digestive process of hope, hype and fruitless backlash.
This is not the moment to rehearse again the rights and wrongs of Sterling’s contract wrangle, a drama of status and gentlemanly expectation that has already reached Jane Austen-like levels of intrigue. There is though another element in the current drama that stands out a little uncomfortably. Among the assorted soundbites swirling about in the wake of that unauthorised BBC interview it is the regurgitation of Brendan Rodgers’ claim last year that Sterling is “the best young player in Europe” that seems most startling, and indeed illuminating.
So far this point has been picked out only to add fuel to the internecine argument. But stepping away for a moment from the question of how much exactly Sterling deserves to be paid, there is something jarring about this in its own right. The best young player in Europe is an Englishman who has never scored a goal in the Champions League, never won any kind of trophy, and never made any real impact against one of the heavyweights of European or international football. Really?
In Rodgers’ defence it is worth noting Sterling has a greater formal claim on this title than anybody else right now. In December last year he was voted Europe’s Golden Boy, or best player 21 or under, at the head of a 30-man shortlist that also included Calum Chambers, Lazar Markovic, Adnan Januzaj, Luke Shaw and Eric Dier. Previous winners include Lionel Messi, Sergio Agüero and Mario Balotelli. Which gives a fairly clear indication of how seriously such things should be taken: genuine A-grade talent will always out; but the leap up from good to seriously good is often no more than guesswork and faith.
What weight should be given to such a title is another matter. Paul Pogba, for example, is still only 22 and clearly a class above. Is Sterling even the best young player at Liverpool? Philippe Coutinho, a seductively thrilling (if non‑English) attacking talent might have a say in that. As might Jordon Ibe, who has barely played but is probably just as exciting when it comes to a punt on unspent potential.
This is not to denigrate Sterling’s talents. I was there to see probably the best three moments to date in his career, each of them entirely convincing: the goal in the title-decider-that-wasn’t at home to Manchester City, when Sterling seemed to pause time briefly, rearrange his body, tweak Joe Hart’s nose and then tickle the ball into an entirely unexpected part of the goal; the title-clincher-that-might-have-been when he pummelled the ball into the Norwich City net from 30 yards out; and in Manaus, where, as England’s No10, Sterling had a wonderful half-hour, carrying the ball with purpose, twisting and turning with thrillingly muscular intent, and producing an entirely illusory sense of an England team finding a winning gear.
Each time Sterling rose to the occasion where others shrunk. He is adaptable, intelligent and blessed with real speed and strength. Against this he has done pretty much nothing of any note so far. His career is a series of nice moments, with almost no imprint outside the Premier League. It is even tempting to conclude there is something slightly illusory about his appeal. Sterling looks so brilliantly upright in possession. There is a charm to his manipulation of the ball and his fine touch that so far exceeds his basic effectiveness.
All of which is to be expected. Sterling is 20 years old. Only in the overheated Premier League could a series of promising moments lead to some apparently serious talk of a £50m transfer fee. The real point here is that beyond the island borders of the World’s Most Excitable League, European football is awash with equivalent fine young talent in Sterling’s part of the pitch. Various factors, among them an easing of concussive tackling and the emphasis on finding space in an increasingly suffocating top tier game, have contributed to making players in Sterling’s position key to the modern game.
As a result, fine-touch attacking midfielders are frankly crawling out of the walls in Europe’s top leagues (never mind Brazil and Argentina, the historic cradle of the No10). The No10 is the position of choice in the Bundesliga, where even the current fifth-placed club, Schalke, have a pair of young creative players at least as good in Max Meyer and the excellent but injury-prone Julian Draxler, who tortured Chelsea’s midfield for half an hour at Stamford Bridge last autumn.

Beyond this can anybody say with any certainty that Sterling is better than Mateo Kovacic, Hakan Calhanoglu, Memphis Depay, Paulo Dybala, Alen Halilovic, Davy Klaassen, Nikola Ninkovic or Jesé Rodríguez? Is he a better prospect than Martin Odegaard, Real Madrid’s performing teenager? Is he actually better than Alex Oxlade‑Chamberlain, Ross Barkley, and Harry Kane? Maybe he is right now. Maybe not next month. It is a meaningless, unanswerable question, an argument about possibility and potential, and a crown that can only really be awarded in retrospect.
In a sense this is simply part of the wider picture. English football has always been in thrall to individuals rather than teams: the idea of The One, the foundling genius emerging fully formed from some urban dustbin rather than the far more difficult business of carefully structured success. Whereas almost without exception the best footballers in the world over the last 20 years have been part of some coherent and identifiable process. The best thing about the current world champions is not whether Thomas Müller is the best gangly, awkward, hyper intelligent space-interpreting semi-targetman in the world (he is), but that a system has borne fruits, producing not the occasional standout genius but a generation of brilliantly modern footballers.
Sterling may well get the bumper deal he probably deserves in the current market, whether at Liverpool or elsewhere (and Manchester City look the most obvious suckers for a domestic poster boy). But it is worth bearing in mind this is a strictly localised farrago; and that the Sterling Supremacy says as much about the rarity of such home reared talents in the Premier League as it does about an agent with eye on the main chance.

Danny Welbeck’s happy return gives Arsenal victory over Manchester United

For Louis van Gaal, it was an ignominious way to confirm there will be no trophy in his first season at Manchester United. His team fell way short, and the indignities were considerable bearing in mind the identity of the player who scored the decisive goal and the various sub-plots provided by the expensive recruits who were supposed to put a fallen team back on a steep, upward trajectory.
Danny Welbeck will certainly have relished his goal given Van Gaal’s unflattering remarks after showing him off the premises last autumn, and Arsène Wenger made a clever decision to entrust him with the central striker role, knowing that he would have a point to prove against his former club. Arsenal were sharper in attack but, just as importantly, less accident-prone on a night when their opponents defended with something bordering on recklessness.
Van Gaal was agitated enough to make a rare excursion to the technical area, and he must have been startled by his team’s lack of care on another unhappy occasion for Ángel di María, sent off for an act of dim-wittedness as United went huffing and puffing after an equaliser.
Di María’s first yellow card was for diving and the second followed moments later, when he took umbrage with the decision, clipped the referee, Michael Oliver, on his back and had a little pull of his shirt. It was a split-second of stupidity that should embarrass the most expensive player in Britain, and the low point in a season that has become a personal ordeal. Radamel Falcao, meanwhile, could not even get off the bench and there was a moment of tragi-comedy afterwards when Van Gaal defended the on-loan striker, signed to replace Welbeck, by pointing out that he had scored four goals and “stimulated” the other players. Who did he mean? United, once again, wore a dishevelled look and it was bordering on desperation when the substitute Adnan Januzaj was booked for another dive.
Arsenal did not have to resort to duplicity. They won because they passed the ball more effectively. They made fewer errors and played with superior intelligence. Santi Cazorla refused to be dragged down by the frequency of the mistakes elsewhere. Francis Coquelin stood out again and the movement of their forward line always caused problems. Welbeck might have looked raw at times, conspicuously nervous early on, but he was a tireless runner and the support cast of Alexis Sánchez, Mesut Özil and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain must have been encouraged by the home side’s vulnerabilities.
The carelessness affected both teams and was due in part to the fact that the pace of the game was so frenetic. That, in turn, made it a far more exciting spectacle than just about everything that has preceded it at Old Trafford this season. Yet it was still strange to see the frequency with which accomplished players lost the ball. It was that kind of night: lots of blood and thunder and a fair amount of thud and blunder, too.
Wayne Rooney’s goal, four minutes after Nacho Monreal had given Arsenal the lead, did at least show that Van Gaal was right to restore him to attack. Yet no team can defend as generously as United and expect to get away with it. Monreal’s goal was a collective failure, but Welbeck’s was a calamity for Antonio Valencia, bearing in mind it came from his scuffed backpass. Welbeck was on the ball in a flash, flicking it one side of David de Gea and running round the other to score into an empty net.
Rooney had taken his goal superbly, reading the flight of Di María’s cross and taking advantage of some poor marking from Laurent Koscielny to flash his header past Wojciech Szczesny. United will also look back on a chance for Chris Smalling, at 2-1, when the defender put the ball over. Smalling, once again, looked conspicuously short of what Van Gaal requires from a thinking man’s team. It has become a recurring theme and he was one of the players implicated in Monreal’s goal.
The only mitigation is that it must have been difficult for Van Gaal to know who to point the finger at first. In those moments we saw Smalling being sucked out of position to the right-back spot, Valencia becoming stranded and Oxlade-Chamberlain expertly eluding Luke Shaw, Ashley Young and Daley Blind before Monreal turned in his pass without anybody tracking his run.
Arsenal lost Oxlade-Chamberlain to a hamstring injury early in the second half, whereas Shaw and Ander Herrera were both removed by Van Gaal during the interval. Michael Carrick was brought on, presumably to help provide some polish in midfield. Yet the lack of composure from United was alarming and, as Van Gaal said afterwards, they were self-inflicted wounds. Welbeck’s goal stemmed from nothing more basic than a long goal-kick from Szczesny. Di María’s meltdown came in the 74th minute and Van Gaal’s verdict – “not so smart” – was being kind bearing in mind he had warned his players to make sure they kept their discipline.
Arsenal had not won at Old Trafford since September 2006 but they played as if affronted by the suggestion they have an inferiority complex against these opponents. It needed another demonstration of De Gea’s brilliance to prevent Cazorla adding a third, and the semi-final draw, pitting Arsenal against Reading or Bradford, completed a hugely satisfying night’s work.

Liverpool through as Philippe Coutinho breaks Bolton hearts at the death

Exiting on Burnden Way in the 86th minute, back on course for Wembley Way by the 91st, Liverpool rescued their FA Cup prospects with a late flurry of blows that devastated Bolton Wanderers. Cruel on Neil Lennon and his tireless Championship team perhaps, but it was the virtues of patience and class that gave Brendan Rodgers’s men a shot of redemption against Crystal Palace in round five.
Bolton were one goal up courtesy of the 36-year-old Eidur Gudjohnsen’s penalty but a man down following the needless dismissal of Neil Danns as the match entered the final four minutes. The red card proved crucial. With a full complement Bolton held their Premier League visitors at bay, won every aerial challenge and last-ditch intervention inside their area and were on course to continue the fourth-round giant-cull. Liverpool had the space but not the clinical touch to profit. Their nerve, however, eventually told against the 10 men.
Emre Can, pushed into central midfield to capitalise on Danns’ departure, lofted a glorious pass over the Bolton substitute Liam Trotter and Raheem Sterling volleyed in a fine equaliser from close range. The groans from the home supporters about five minutes of stoppage time had not fallen silent when Philippe Coutinho marked his new five-year contract at Liverpool by taking aim from 20 yards and beating Andy Lonergan with a dipping shot in off the crossbar. Reprieve for Rodgers but a night of regret for his fellow Ulsterman in the home technical area.
Lennon was fulsome in his praise of Bolton’s heroic defending with the exception of the lapse in concentration from Trotter that enabled Sterling to level. He was also blunt in his appraisal of the referee Roger East’s performance – “rubbish” – for what he deemed an unjust first yellow card for Danns when he lunged through Joe Allen. “I can understand the sending off but the first one wasn’t a booking. It changed the game,” said the Bolton manager, although his side were the beneficiaries of East’s decision-making when he awarded a soft penalty when Martin Skrtel caught the toes of Zach Clough.
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The Bolton manager felt that playing away from home might suit Liverpool given his team would be inclined to take more risks in the replay and leave more spaces as a consequence. Rodgers claimed the Macron Stadium’s “beautiful pitch” – a point he has stressed about several opposition grounds lately as his frustration grows with the Anfield surface – would also work to side’s advantage. The script never unfolded that way for Liverpool. The task of breaking down a well-drilled, hard-working Championship opponent was just as complicated as at Anfield, and Bolton posed a greater threat on home soil.
Rodgers fielded a strong side despite a Merseyside derby looming at Everton on Saturday and there were nervous moments when David Wheater came through the back of Sterling’s ankles to collect a merited yellow. The Liverpool forward limped on, mercifully to the very end for his side, but Lazar Markovic suffered a back injury that will have to be assessed before the trip to Goodison Park. The biggest selection surprise came from Bolton’s manager who, evidently keen to hustle Liverpool’s back three at every opportunity, deployed the captain Matt Mills at centre-foward instead of in central defence.
Sterling forced Lonergan into a fine low save in the first half and struck a post when Dorian Dervite stood off and invited him to shoot from 12 yards. Wheater headed straight at Simon Mignolet at the opposite end and Gudjohnsen blazed over from Dean Moxey’s inviting cross when he had time and space inside the area for a more composed finish.
Gudjohnsen made amends in telling fashion after the restart although, in truth, Sterling should have beaten the former Chelsea and Barcelona forward to it. Liverpool broke through courtesy of Coutinho’s perfectly-weighted pass to Sterling but Dervite produced an exquisite tackle to thwart the hesitant forward. Sterling had a second bite but his shot towards the top corner was punched away by Lonergan.
For the first time in the game Liam Feeney broke free down the right and delivered a deep cross towards Mills. His knockdown found Clough who took a touch into the area where he was clipped by Skrtel. The referee had no hesitation in pointing to the spot and Gudjohnsen stroked a nonchalant spot-kick down the centre of the diving Mignolet’s goal.
Bolton’s prospect of holding out was dealt a severe blow when Danns was sent off for a second bookable offence, both for late and needless lunges on Allen, yet the home side had chances to double their advantage through Gudjohnsen and Clough. The Icelandic striker headed straight at Mignolet when he should have scored and Clough shot narrowly wide. They were opportunities that Bolton could not afford to miss. The pressure inevitably intensified from Liverpool.
Can had a shot deflected just wide and another tipped superbly on to the bar by Lonergan. Henderson’s half volley was diverted against a post by Wheater before Can found Sterling, who equalised in style. The misery was not over for Bolton.
Coutinho collected a pass 20 yards from goal and left Lonergan stranded with a shot that looped over and in off the underside of the bar.

Oldham confirm Ched Evans is expected to sign by early next week

The owner of Oldham Athletic, Simon Corney, believes there is an “80% chance” his League One club will sign the convicted rapist Ched Evans. The businessman argues the 26-year-old striker, who served half of a five-year prison sentence for an offence committed in 2011, deserves a chance to resume his career. “We believe he has served his time,” Corney told the Jewish Chronicle. “There is an 80% chance of us signing him. It won’t be done today. It’s not straightforward and there are some legal issues.”
The prospect of Evans resuming his career at Boundary Park has provoked a strong reaction, with more than 65,000 people signing a petition protesting against the move and the shadow sports minister, Clive Efford, writing to the Football Association on Wednesday to ask the governing body to intervene to prevent Evans from returning to play football.
“The decision on whether players should return to football after committing serious offences is not a matter solely for individual clubs and I have asked the FA to refuse his registration when Oldham Athletic approach them,” Efford said.
In his letter to the FA’s chairman, Greg Dyke, Efford wrote: “I believe the FA has failed to appreciate the seriousness of the crime for which Ched Evans has been convicted and the consequences that his return to the game will have on people’s impressions of the sport and its governing body.” It is understood, though, that the FA has no rules under which to prevent the registration and Evans would be free to play again.
Corney said he understood the widespread concerns but he claimed the support of three unnamed Premier League managers and added: “I hope people don’t get too carried away and it doesn’t get too hot. I completely understand people’s views and I respect them. I would never tell people they are wrong to have their own views. But we want people to keep them in check.”
Although Corney stated the deal could happen “at any time”, he told the Jewish Chronicle it was likely to be confirmed before the weekend. However, Barry Owen, a board member who backs the signing of Evans on what would be a free transfer, hinted plans were in a state of flux and warned the deal may not be completed until next week. “There are ongoing negotiations with regard to signing Ched Evans,” Owen said. “Unfortunately, quite a lot of due diligence still needs to be completed. We are still in talks with the PFA [Professional Footballers’ Association] and other agencies. At the moment I would just ask you to bear with us. There are things to be done, genuinely, and I don’t anticipate that it is going to be done over the next few days.”
Commercially Oldham have already paid the price for the move to sign Evans. on Wednesday one of the club’s sponsors ended its association. Verlin Rainwater Solutions said: “After receiving the news regarding the imminent signing of Ched Evans it is with great regret that [we] will no longer be associated with Oldham Athletic. We would like to take this opportunity to make clear that we feel Mr Evans should be able to lead a life without further punishment after serving his sentence, although our feelings remain the same that this should not be within the public domain where his previous behaviour may influence the next generation.
“We sincerely wish the club a very successful future and have no regrets about being associated with Oldham Athletic over the past few seasons but feel our continued support would be sending out the wrong message.”
The restaurant chain Nando’s said it would be ending its relationship with Oldham and another sponsor, ZenOffice, is close to following suit, warning that its five-year relationship would be over if Evans signed. A statement from the company said: “This partnership has been based on mutual respect as OAFC did share the same values as ZenOffice, based on family and community. ZenOffice do not agree that the path OAFC are embarking on espouses these values. Therefore it is with much regret that ZenOffice would like to confirm that we will end our association with Oldham if the move goes ahead to sign Ched Evans.”
Oldham’s main sponsor is Sports Direct whose chairman is the Newcastle United owner, Mike Ashley. Although the company has yet to comment on the issue, it is thought Ashley is unconcerned. Mecca Bingo, another Oldham sponsor, threatened this week to withdraw its support. In a tweet it said: “We can confirm [we] will be ending our association with @OfficialOAFC if they sign Ched Evans.”
Corney, whom Oldham’s website states owns “97% of share capital”, purchased the Lancashire club during the 2003-04 season. The consortium was credited with stabilising Oldham, who had been in a difficult financial position and close to liquidation.

An Oldham Athletic employee distributes hot drinks to the press outside Boundary Park. Photograph: Dave Howarth/PA

Evans, who was convicted of raping a 19-year-old woman in 2012, had been linked with Sheffield United, Hartlepool United, Tranmere Rovers and Malta’s Hibernians before either being turned down or, in the case of Hibernians, prevented from joining by the Ministry of Justice. Northumbria’s police commissioner, Vera Baird, who is from Oldham, called on Ashley to withdraw Sports Direct’s sponsorship if Evans signed. The Greater Manchester police commissioner, Tony Lloyd, said: “It will send out entirely the wrong message if they offer him a contract.”
Evans consistently maintains his innocence. An investigation into his conviction by the Criminal Cases Review Commission is continuing.

Evans with his girlfriend Natasha Massey. Photograph: Rex/REX

Oldham signed Lee Hughes in 2007 after he had been released from prison after causing death by dangerous driving.