Rooney has been handed a three match ban, ruling him out of the European Championship Group Matches. This has inevitably brought up the questions of whether England can survive without Rooney and whether Rooney should even be included in the squad.

It has always been taught that football is a team sport, so I have no idea why England and nearly all the main football commentators are excessively worried about England without Rooney for the Group Matches. The online betting market is still quite strong for Rooney to be the Top English Goalscorer for the tournament; with Sky Bet having Wayne Rooney joint second favourite at 6/1 (with Darren Bent being favourite at 4/1). This coincidently answers the other main question of whether he will be in the squad - as in my experience the bookmakers are seldom far from the mark.

Listening to the commentary at the time of the ruling, it was as if Rooney was being set up to be the fall guy for England inevitably not winning the European Championship. We seem to be forgetting that Spain remains the best bet at 5/2 to win outright. In all honesty, I wouldn’t even place a free bet on England to win the European Championship outright…