Wednesday 31 August 2016 07:39, UK
England captain Wayne Rooney has revealed he overruled Roy Hodgson's decision for Harry Kane to take corners at Euro 2016.
Hodgson was heavily criticised after Kane, last season's Premier League top goalscorer, took all six corners in the opening game against Russia, only for Rooney to take over early in the second group match against Wales.
Although it initially appeared Hodgson had changed his mind on who was responsible for dead-ball duties, Rooney has now confirmed he made the decision to take over responsibility for corners himself.
"Roy obviously decided for Harry to take corners. I felt at the time that he was the top goalscorer in the Premier League and he's a big lad in the box," said Rooney, who has been confirmed to continue as captain under new England boss Sam Allardyce.
"It was Roy's decision, but after the first game I don't think Harry wanted to take the corners so I went and took them.
"I felt I probably should have taken them anyway. He's probably better in the air than me and for the last season he had been scoring a lot of goals. So that was it really. I think players have the right to make decisions on the pitch. You make a decision on what you see on the pitch.
"Nothing was ever made of it. I don't think Roy had an issue with that."
England went on to win the match against Wales but were knocked out at the hands of Iceland in the last 16, leading to social media footage emerging of Wales players celebrating England's exit.
Rooney, who has revealed he will retire from international duty after the 2018 Russia World Cup, said the reaction could have strained relationships between players at club level and admitted he wasn't bothered when Wales were finally eliminated in the semi-finals.
"Because some of the England players are club-mates with some of the Wales players, for the lads who had club team-mates jumping around to celebrate their failure, that was a bit disappointing for some of them," he said.
"Not taken aback, I think a bit disappointed. Personally, I wasn't really too fussed. I said before that during the
tournament I'm not fussed what Wales or Ireland do in the tournament.
"If they do well good luck to them, if they don't, I'm not really too bothered. I probably would have wanted them to go on and win it, as I would rather a British team did, but I didn't lose any sleep when they got knocked out."
Allardyce, who confirmed Michail Antonio as one of a number of changes in his first England squad for their World Cup qualifier against Slovakia on Sunday, has remained coy on his assessment of England's defeat to Iceland.
However, after Hodgson was replaced as England boss, Rooney has now opened up about the loss, putting the early exit down to a lack of focus.
"I think there was a big lack of concentration in the game," said Rooney. "You can say Iceland are ranked wherever they are in world football, but at that level if you lose concentration you will get punished and that is what happened.
"I felt there was a lack of concentration and a lack of discipline in our shape during the game and that's about it.
"We were confident we were going to win the game but we knew it would be a difficult game.
"I felt we chased the game too soon which meant we lost our shape too easily. I felt if we'd stuck to what we were doing and worn them down the goal might have come, but I felt we lost our shape and our discipline in the team and didn't give ourselves as good a chance as we could have done."
