Roy Hodgson has defended his team player Wayne Rooney and England's performance during their Euro 2016 qualifier against Norway.
Hodgson insinuated that England will be forced to playing like Norway as the team manager as well as the team captain admitted that they must perform better in order to triumph in Basel.
Rooney scored his 41st goal for the team during the second-half penalty shot which helped England defeat Norway. Last Monday's game had the lowest number of watcher for an England match at Wembley, 40,181, since it was re-opened in 2007.
England dominated possession throughout the match but captain Rooney believes that they could have done better. The Manchester United striker was bristly during the post match media interview especially when the media pointed out the team only came up with two goals through the game. He said "Don't give me that one. Two shots on target? What about all the ones they threw themselves in front of, or the near misses? Don't hit me with statistics. When we had that much possession, and you talk about two shots on target? We're not scoring a lot of goals at the moment but we're not playing against teams who come out against us a lot."
He added "This team will score goals. They'll score goals. Rooney will score goals. Welbeck will score goals. [Daniel] Sturridge will score goals. [Raheem] Sterling will score goals. Switzerland will need to beat us. If anything, we might be Norway on Monday. We might be pushed back and won't be able to attack and dominate for long periods, as we did tonight. I don't know. But it might be the case. I don't think the mindset of the Swiss team, playing us in Basel, will be the same as the mindset of the Norwegians today."
Rooney, who was able to convert a penalty after Omar Elabdellaoui tripped Sterling, said "In the first half we moved the ball quite well. The second half we started really sloppily, which was disappointing, but we got the win in the end. The young players in the team will learn. We're all still learning. Raheem Sterling is a threat, he gets at players. It doesn't always come off but he's an exciting player to watch. We all could have done better, but it's a night where it was important to win."
