• England manager says striker will benefit from enforced rest
• Rooney suspended from first two games at Euro 2012
Wayne Rooney's period of enforced rest could turn out to be a blessing in disguise, believes the England manager, Roy Hodgson. The Manchester United striker is unlikely to have played for a month by the time England face Ukraine in their final group game at the European Championship, as he is banned for their first two matches and is unlikely to feature in either warm-up friendly.
Hodgson also revealed that Rooney had been carrying an injury during the closing weeks of the season that would benefit from two weeks' rest. "He has been playing with a slight injury for the last three or four games and that needed a couple of weeks to really clear up," he said. "It would have meant asking him to continue playing with this minor injury, which has been kept relatively quiet for the obvious reason that Manchester United didn't want to alert opponents. It [the break] will benefit him in every respect."
Rooney will not travel with the squad to Oslo for Saturday's friendly with Norway, during which Hodgson will experiment with striking options in his absence, and the new manager has yet to decide whether he will feature during the final warm-up match against Belgium at Wembley on 2 June – six days before the start of Euro 2012.
But Hodgson said he expected Rooney to return at full fitness and that he would benefit from the break at the end of a long season. He will join the squad on 29 May, the same date as Chelsea's players who have featured in the Champions League final.
"His enthusiasm for the task was really fantastic. When I offered him a couple more days rest if he wanted, he was adamant he wanted to get in [and join us]," he said. "We've got time to get people fit. The good thing about football players these days is that they look after themselves quite well."
Hodgson said he had decided against becoming the latest England manager to try to tempt Rooney's Manchester United team-mate Paul Scholes out of international retirement. "I'm a great admirer of Paul Scholes, he has gone back to United and had a major part to play in the second part of their season. He's a wonderful player but he is coming to the latter end of his career," he said.
Hodgson said that he would have approached Scholes only if there had been a "void" at the heart of England's midfield, which he did not believe was the case. "He knows as well as I do that there isn't a void. I'm not 100% sure he wanted to juggle England and Manchester United again," he said.
But he said another long running conundrum for England managers – grappling with the perennial problem of fitting Frank Lampard and his captain Steven Gerrard into the same starting XI – held no fear for him.
"I've seen them both do very good central midfield jobs for their club sides. I've seen Steven do it for me at Liverpool and I've seen Frank Lampard do it extremely well, not least in the last couple of weeks against Barcelona – one of the most talented midfields you could ever wish to play against," Hodgson said.
"I don't want to sit here and say of course it can work because I'd be flying in the face of evidence that you could put before me that says that's not true. But I don't see Gerrard or Lampard as being exclusively offensive or defensive. They are all-round midfield players who have all the qualities you need." Read More
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