Former Tottenham Hotspur and England player Gary Lineker is certain that Wayne Rooney does not play such an important role for the English national football team anymore as there are many talented youngsters that are on the rise and are quickly turning into the main stars for England while Wayne Rooney’s impact with his national team has not been as big as it used to be.

Even with the absence of Wayne Rooney from England’s latest matches against Germany, Lithuania and Estonia, the English national side still managed to emerge victorious. Some of these games were just friendly encounters while the rest were European Championship qualification matches and England came out on top.

Gary Lineker stated that the head coach of England, Roy Hodgson has a number of alternatives that he can use instead of Wayne Rooney in the attacking department of the national team as the former Leicester City player said: ‘’I don’t want that to be taken in the wrong way, but I think there are all sorts of options up front for Roy now.’’

“He has got Harry Kane, it would be hard not to pick Harry, and he is probably the best centre forward we have got right now. And then alongside that you have got Vardy, who has been flying, you have got Sterling. Sturridge never seems to keep himself fit but if he did he would be another option. So all of a sudden we have got different options up front and we are not so dependent on Wayne.Obviously we would like him to be fit and part of the squad but it is not like before when he has been injured and it was the end of the world.’’

At the age of 30, Wayne Rooney isn’t as prolific in scoring goals as he used to be some time ago and this certainly has been his best season as the English attacker has only scored 7 goals in 24 appearances for Manchester United but despite his recent struggles, he is still expected to play a big role for England for the upcoming 2016 Euro’s but it might be one of his last truly big international competitions that he gets to perform in with England as the youngsters are starting to take over.