Wayne Rooney still feels like an unlikely great goalscorer for England
When Wayne Rooney first broke onto the scene with England, in the run-up to Euro 2004, he was expected to be an influential second striker - supporting the more heavily scoring Michael Owen. Domestically, the young Everton player was often played on the left hand side of a front three (which he later reprised for Manchester United) as David Moyes often needed to play with one out and out striker away from home. But for England he was seen as more of a support striker of just two forwards, with Michael Owen set to dominate the main striker role for years to come.
As a second striker Rooney could probably have expected the kind of one goal every three games that Teddy Sheringham (11 goals in 30 games) or Kevin Keegan (21 goals in 62 games) recorded. So Rooney would have to record something like 150 caps to threaten 50 international goals. But with Michael Owen's decline England has changed and even with a direct replacement for Michael Owen available in the form of Jermain Defoe (11 goals in 12 games) the formation is now built around a more advanced muscular forward getting Rooney goalscoring chances.
Rooney has not disappointed anyone and has now built a comparable goals per game record as the best of the recent strikers like Michael Owen and Alan Shearer (though not as prolific as Gary Lineker - but then again who is?). Yet it still seems somewhat strange to consider Rooney to be the main goalscoring threat in an England team. The goals he has scored seemed to have suddenly mounted up and against Ukraine tomorrow Rooney could well move into the top 10 goalscorers England has ever produced. Not only that but a holy trinity of England greats - Shearer, Lofthouse and Finney - are only five goals away, and the two remaining qualification games give him a shot at their 30 goal mark. With a clutch of friendlies ahead of the World Cup 2010 tournament Rooney really should become the fifth highest England goal scorer of all time before that jamboree starts as long as he stays healthy.
Wayne Rooney has remarkably turned into a great goalscorer as well as a scorer of great goals.
Top England Goalscorers:
49 Bobby Charlton
48 Gary Lineker
44 Jimmy Greaves
40 Michael Owen
30 Tom Finney
30 Nat Lofthouse
30 Alan Shearer
29 Vivian Woodward
28 Stephen Bloomer
27 David Platt
26 Bryan Robson
25 Wayne Rooney
Selected Others:
20 Frank Lampard
17 David Beckham
16 Steven Gerrard
16 Peter Crouch
11 Jermain Defoe
10 Joe Cole
