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Wayne Rooney downplays debate over his England role

Harry Kane is happy with his form and role as a lone striker for England despite his scoring drought continuing in Slovakia.

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And Allardyce insisted that the late victor was a crucial moment for his reign, with England now preparing to face Malta at Wembley next month.

“The opposition going down to 10 men makes it more hard sometimes”. You’ve got to beat 10 men and even if we weren’t as clinical as I expected us to be, we richly deserved it based on us dominating the game.

Allardyce punched the air with relief as England scored with virtually the last kick and Kane believes it was just reward for the new manager.

It took 64 minutes for the team to produce a shot on target, and they eventually sneaked a 1-0 win thanks to a 95th-minute strike from Adam Lallana. “It puts us on a journey going forward”. We [had] to push both full-backs on, we had to get the wide men coming in between the lines to break down two banks of four. We have to try and be more, in terms of practice in breaking defences down.

“We didn’t panic, that was the main thing.” said Rooney. However, the England boss has admitted it wasn’t easy watching on from the sidelines at times.

“The lads stuck together, remained patient, and got the goal in the last 20 seconds”.

He pushed up into a more orthodox number 10 role at half-time, only to retreat to a midfield holding role after Allardyce sent on Dele Alli for Henderson.

On Rooney’s position: “Today, wherever he wanted to be. And if you are that’s great”.

But after substitute Theo Walcott was denied a late victor by the offside flag, Lallana struck his first worldwide goal to break the hearts of the home side and give England a positive start in their qualification campaign for the 2018 tournament in Russian Federation.

Put worldwide experience to the side, the former West Ham United and Bolton Wanderers boss is the England manager, and he tells players where they should play and must take players out who are harming the team in general.

“We keep plugging away and I thought as a unit we played brilliantly”, said Lallana.

Meanwhile, the United star insisted he played where he was instructed to by the new manager.

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“A father and his son in a wheelchair came to the hotel this morning and asked if it was okay to have a picture”.

England goalkeeper Joe Hart with goalkeeper coach Martyn Margetson in Slovakia