Roy Hodgson Believes Wayne Rooney’s Route to 50 Goals Had Been Hard

Roy Hodgson has recently compared Wayne Rooney’s 50 international goals achievement to that of Sir Bobby Charlton. He stated that it according to him, Rooney had to work hard to close in those 50 goals compared to Charlton.

Last November, after Rooney had scored twice during his 101st appearance for England, they United player stood just 3 goals behind beating Charlton’s 49-goals record.

The current Manchester United captain had been been able to surpass the score of the former United legend over the next two weeks during a match against Lithuania in a European Qualifier and a friendly match in Italy.

Even though it took Charlton 87 matches to reach the score of 46, Hodgson is of the opinion that the toughness of players opposing England is now accrued in modern games with teams having less chances of striking high scores in wins.

Hodgson also went on to say that it might be easy for him to praise the merits of 1950s players’ performance. However he has realised that games have evolved. He believes that achieving 50 goals today is much tougher than what it was in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

For instance, in the past, for a match such as England opposing Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia, the goals involved would have ranged between 5 to 10. However, the games are now deeply competitive.

Hodgson went on to state that Rooney’s achievement should be saluted due to the toughness of the competition in modern football. Statistics seem to go along with what the England boss said with Charlton having recorded 4 hat-tricks throughout his career playing for team England.