Gareth Southgate today confirmed Wayne Rooney will remain England captain but revealed he is no longer an automatic starter.
Rooney was left out of the starting line-up for two of Southgate’s four matches as interim manager prior to confirmation of his appointment as Sam Allardyce’s permanent successor at Wembley this morning.
Southgate insists Rooney remains a prominent part of his plans qualifying and preparing for the 2018 World Cup in Russia but England’s all-time record goalscorer appears set for a spell of rotation, especially with his club place under threat at OId Trafford.
“Wayne Rooney is the England captain,” said Southgate. “I said that at the beginning of the interim period. What's also clear is I've only selected him to start in two of the four matches that we've had. So it's not a case of Wayne expecting to play every game.
“It's important for me that we develop more leaders in the group. We’ve talked about that over the last few months. When I played for England, particularly in 1996 when we had such a successful team, we had captains throughout the team, captains of their club.
"If we want to be successful in the next few years, we have to develop leadership as that's one of the key areas.
“We need to give different people the opportunities to lead in different ways. Wayne has been captain to this point and will be in the future, but we have to develop others.”
Southgate was unable to confirm Steve Holland’s appointment to his backroom staff with negotiations ongoing while the FA are yet to fill the England’s Under-21s managerial vacancy with Aidy Boothroyd and Mark Sampson are the anticipated frontrunners.
The FA are also conducting a review into the rules regarding player activities during get-togethers after photographs emerged of Rooney crashing a wedding party held elsewhere in the team’s Watford hotel.
