Hodgson: Roo could be a top coach

18 October 2014 09:46

Roy Hodgson would love to see Wayne Rooney go into management after he hangs his boots up.

Providing he avoids injury, Rooney will become the ninth player in history to win 100 England caps next month when he leads the Three Lions out against Slovenia at Wembley.

Given that he is just 28 years old, Rooney looks almost certain to then go on and surpass Peter Shilton's all-time 125-cap record by the time he retires.

After he hangs up his boots, Hodgson is convinced the striker would be a successful manager. Hodgson has been highly impressed by the leadership skills Rooney has shown since he was appointed captain in September.

With so much money on offer from broadcasters, many ex-professionals turn their backs on management and end up spending their retirement in the media, but Hodgson thinks it would be a shame to see Rooney and a few of his former team-mates go down the same route.

"Wayne has a lot of playing time left so I can't think he has given it much thought, but when you have had a career like he has had, or the likes of (Steven) Gerrard, (Frank) Lampard, (John) Terry or (Ashley) Cole have had, and you are that good a professional, then I would love to see them all stay in the game in a coaching or management role because they have so much to offer," the England manager said.

When Rooney calls time on his career, he will not look back at last week's games against San Marino and Estonia with too much fondness. Rooney had 14 shots against San Marino and fluffed two good chances in Tallinn, but the striker still scored two crucial goals to help England maintain their perfect start to Euro 2016 qualification.

Hodgson wants to see an improvement from his captain and the rest of the team in England's next qualifier against Slovenia.

"I'm sure all of them when they watch the game back will think: 'I could have scored there'," Hodgson added.

"It's nice to play some good football and have some nice moves but really the whole point of that is to score goals and Wayne was in the same boat as the others (against Estonia)."

Three days after England host Slovenia on November 15, they travel to Glasgow for a mouth-watering friendly against old foes Scotland.

Much of the focus will be on the game in Glasgow, but Hodgson made it clear his priority is the qualifier against Slovenia.

"It will be a very competitive fixture, but I know which side my bread is buttered on - it's on qualifying. That is the most important thing," Hodgson said.

"If we don't win it we don't get any points towards qualification and if we lose we don't lose anything.

"It's the three points against Slovenia that's important."

Hodgson could even consider naming completely different teams for the Scotland and Slovenia games.

The likelihood of that happening will depend on whether the likes of Theo Walcott, Kyle Walker and Daniel Sturridge are fully fit by next month.

"We had seven players who are integral members of the wider squad who weren't here this time but if those seven come back I will have a big pool of players so if I wanted to do that (change the entire team) I would certainly have that option," Hodgson said.

Anyone who does return for the double-header will be hoping to impress.

Hodgson added: "At the moment it's becoming quite hard to break into this team, because the players aren't losing and when you win games, you don't concede goals it's not so easy for players to break in so it may turn out to be a very useful game for me because the one thing I do know is that anyone who can go up to Celtic Park, get on the field and play well can go into the qualifiers without a doubt."

Source: PA