Wayne Rooney's England career moved a step closer to the end after the former captain was left out of Gareth Southgate's squad to face Scotland and France next month.
Rooney made a brief cameo in Manchester United's Europa League final win over Ajax in Stockholm on Wednesday night, but was brought back down to earth with the news he has not been included in a 25-man party that will contest a World Cup qualifier in Hampden on June 10, followed by a Paris friendly three days later.
The door is not closed on an international return for the 31-year-old, who had hoped to end his Three Lions career by leading his country in Russia next summer, but Southgate has placed him firmly behind Marcus Rashford, Jermain Defoe, Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy in the pecking order.
Elsewhere in the squad, there is a recall for goalkeeper Jack Butland, back after a year of injury trauma dating back to his previous England appearance in Germany, a first call-up for Tottenham's Kieran Trippier and nods for Middlesbrough's Ben Gibson and West Ham's Aaron Cresswell.
England squad
Jack Butland (Stoke), Fraser Forster (Southampton), Joe Hart (Torino, on loan from Man City), Tom Heaton (Burnley)
Ryan Bertrand (Southampton), Gary Cahill (Chelsea), Nathaniel Clyne (Liverpool), Aaron Cresswell (West Ham), Ben Gibson (Middlesbrough), Phil Jones (Man Utd), Chris Smalling (Man Utd), John Stones (Man City), Kieran Trippier (Tottenham), Kyle Walker (Tottenham)
Dele Alli (Tottenham), Eric Dier (Tottenham), Adam Lallana (Liverpool), Jesse Lingard (Man Utd), Jake Livermore (West Brom), Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Arsenal), Raheem Sterling (Man City)
Jermain Defoe (Sunderland), Harry Kane (Tottenham), Marcus Rashford (Man Utd), Jamie Vardy (Leicester).
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel