“ROONEY COST US WORLD CUP”

Sven Eriksson has made the barmy claim Wayne Rooney's red card cost England the World Cup. The former England coach's agent Athole Still insists:

“He absolutely feels himself that if Rooney hadn't been sent off we would have probably won the World Cup.

“We'd have certainly gone through against Portugal. In the second half against Portugal we were much the better team, even with 10 men.

“Sven felt that if England had a full complement of 11 players for the second half they would have beaten them and would probably have gone on to win the World Cup.”

From The Times:

Later, however, Still dismissed any notion that Eriksson blames Rooney personally.

“I said that if Rooney hadn't been sent off, then Sven believed we would have won the game and probably gone on to win the World Cup,” he told Sky Sports News.

“It would be quite wrong to say he blames Rooney for not winning the World Cup.”

Van der Sar's backing Wayne however, from the MEN:

Edwin van der Sar insists, “Nobody here has any doubts about Wayne. People regard him very highly and expect a lot of him but even if he was to play 55 games a season, as soon as he goes through a spell where he is not scoring or makes a couple of wrong decisions, people get on his back.

“We all know how it works in England. You just have to see past it.”