Complete Analysis of Wayne Rooney's England Role

Wayne Rooney's England role is inevitably defined by what the Three Lions most rely on him for: goals.

With good reason, of course. Rooney's goal against Poland in World Cup 2014 qualifying on October 15 was Rooney's 38th goal for England in international play. Rooney is now two behind Michael Owen for fourth place all-time in goals scored for England.

More impressively, that same goal was Rooney's 28th for England in competitive international play (discounting goals scored in friendlies). Rooney has no equal on that list; he pushed his lead over Owen to two, and does not figure to look back.

That the vast majority of Rooney's England goals have come in competitive international play underscores the mixed blessing that England has in Rooney.

On one hand, Rooney scores big goals for his national team. That goal against Poland came in the 41st minute of a match where England, on the precipice of World Cup qualification, were being stymied before a progressively more terrified Wembley Stadium crowd before Rooney broke the seal.

Wayne Rooney	28
Michael Owen	26
Gary Lineker	22
Alan Shearer	21

As ESPNFC put it, "It was the Manchester United man's 38th England goal, and his ninth in 10 games, confirming his status as his team's talisman heading into yet another major tournament."

That is a huge plus, as every XI needs its best player to make the difference on the big stage.

The downside, though, is that England sides featuring Rooney can fall into the trap of standing around waiting for Rooney to do something special. Which, come to think of it, is sort of what happened against Poland.

This is one of the challenges England manager Roy Hodgson must constantly contend with, a challenge that will become even more daunting when the matches are played before a global audience in Brazil.

A much larger concern, though, is where and how to deploy Rooney depending on the formation England's opposition compels Hodgson to use.

Rooney's preference to be a striker (and only a striker) is no news to anyone.

Daniel Taylor's recent report for the Guardian included this choice quote from Rooney, recalling terse conversations with United brass about his role: "I got told to play in midfield and I didn't want to. I just think there had to come a point when, for my own career, I had to be a bit selfish really."

If Rooney dislikes playing midfield for United, he certainly is not likely to quickly embrace a similar role for England.

So Hodgson has rather ingeniously found feature places for Rooney in both the 4-2-3-1 he generally favors and the 4-3-3 he uses only in "break glass in case of emergency" situations.

Michael Cox of ESPN did a splendid job analyzing Hodgson's regular reliance on a 4-2-3-1 formation that can, to the untrained eye, look like a moribund 4-4-2.

"In reality, the majority of 4-2-3-1s look like a 4-4-2 without the ball; the wingers are usually asked to protect the fullbacks, while the central attacking midfielder works alongside the centre-forward," Cox wrote.

The piece went on to express plainly how Hodgson tailors both the 4-2-3-1 and the 4-3-3 (which Hodgson sent out against Brazil in a February 2013 friendly) to make Rooney comfortable while also using him to best effect:

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The first features three central midfielders and Rooney alone upfront, when England need numbers in the centre of the pitch to compete against big sides. The second sacrifices a central midfielder, uses Rooney as a number 10 and features a proper centre-forward -- when England can be more confident of dominating a game and can shift resources from midfield to the penalty box. 

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Rooney might prefer the "top of the spear" position the 4-2-3-1 affords him, but even being in the center of the front line in the 4-3-3 must be, to Rooney's mind at least, better than forever being asked to track back as a midfielder.

Ultimately, former United manager Sir Alex Ferguson's desire to exploit Rooney's other-worldly pitch sense at midfield here and there made a lot of sense—for United.

United rarely lacked other scoring options on any side Rooney played for. And many of those scoring options (Robin van Persie, Javier Hernandez, Dimitar Berbatov and so on) would be troubled defending a fire hydrant.

So playing offense-only forwards in front of Rooney served Ferguson's ends just fine.

Fortunately for Rooney, England does not have a glut of scoring talent. Certainly England does not have a coterie of strikers who can score the ball better than Rooney does.

Rooney will thus feature for England at the 2014 World Cup, perhaps breaking his goalless streak in World Cup matches in the process.

For England's sake, they had better hope so.