“I have to be honest with you, I've not given thought to that,” Roy Hodgson said this week when asked about where Wayne Rooney might best play for England. An FA Cup semi-final has provided some extremely serious material for his consideration.

It told him that the ‘problem’ of trying to house Rooney within his starting XI - at a time when Harry Kane’s case for leading the line is indisputable and Jamie Vardy and Dele Alli’s supreme self-belief makes their own claims incredibly strong - is not such an intractable one. It was Rooney the quarter back we saw in the Manchester United side who for half of this game pummelled Everton so completely that Roberto Martinez seemed to have no road to redemption. As a vision of what this summer’s French adventure might look like for the national captain, it was a sparkling exposition in the late afternoon sunshine.

Rooney’s distribution of the ball has never been in doubt. He is the best passer in this land within a confined space in the final third of a pitch. But the delivery here came from all over the field and was virtuoso. An easy early brush of the instep to send the ball over the top of Everton’s defence for Jesse Lingard’s split second timing to step ahead of the defensive line and volley. An arced pass to the left hand channel where Anthony Martial waited with menace for the chance to maintain his destruction of Muhamed Besic in the game’s first period. This was orchestration of the highest order.

The acclaim he must take for delivering United a step closer to what would be his first FA Cup must be tempered by how catastrophic Everton proved to be when Rooney was wreaking havoc. Yet this distribution from the deep and the sprinting retreat to clear from the goal-line in the game’s fourth minute does not tell half of the story. The completeness of his contribution stemmed from the almost entirely free role he carved out for himself in the line of four behind Marcus Rashford.

Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Show all 22 1 /22 Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Joel Robles - 7 out of 10 Emerged with some credit, matching the majority of what a rampant but forward line could throw at him. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Muhamed Besic - 4 out of 10 Visibly confused by the mere prospect of handling Martial. This was not the day to be making you first go of playing right-back. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Phil Jagielka - 5 out of 10 Not ‘medically fit’ for this game according to Roberto Martinez. However you want to put it, he was off-the-pace. 2016 Getty Images Everton vs Manchester United player ratings John Stones - 5 out of 10 Hesitated and then moved far too late to meet Fellaini for the opening goal and, in truth, it was one of several moments where the highly-rated centre-half did not look too sure of himself. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Leighton Baines - 6 out of 10 A restrained, unadventurous performance, but that was largely down to he and his team-mates being penned behind the halfway line. The best of a bad bunch at the back. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Darron Gibson - 6 out of 10 On the wrong end of a cartoonish moment in the first half, when Rashford was allowed to pick his moment to turn and sprint past him. A creditable performance, nonetheless, given his lack of playing time recently. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Tom Cleverley – 5 out of 10 Should have made the most of Everton’s second-half resurgence by burying a chance at the far-post. Questions remain over whether he brings any real quality to the Toffees’ midfield. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings James McCarthy - 5 out of 10 Struggled to get a handle on his midfield opponents and, as usual, showed little more than the odd moment of adventure. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Ross Barkley - 5 out of 10 Everton’s chief outlet on the counter in the frantic late stages but his final ball was found lacking on too many occasion. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Aaron Lennon - 7 out of 10 One of Everton’s brighter players in their dismal first half, as most of their brief forays forward originated with the winger. He could, however, have offered Besic more support. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Romelu Lukaku – 4 out of 10 Where was his touch? If the Belgian’s control had been better, he could have had Everton two-up inside the first 15 minutes, and could have notched four by the end of the 90. Those misses seemed to shake him, which explains the lacklustre penalty. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings David De Gea – 7 out of 10 As quiet an evening as Simon Mignolet enjoyed on Wednesday - until the penalty, that is, which was simply not good enough to beat a ‘keeper of his quality. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Timothy Fosu-Mensah – 6 out of 10 Looked inhibited by the occasion early on, particularly when raised a white flag for his first aerial contest with Lukaku. Seemed to recover but made a clumsy challenge for the penalty. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Marcos Rojo - 4 out of 10 Gave Deulofeu far too much room for the goal. Still yet to prove he is good enough to play at this level. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Daley Blind - 5 out of 10 Struggled to contain Lukaku at times, who often found it easy to roll the Dutchman off him. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Chris Smalling - 5 out of 10 Even he probably does not know why, when trying to block Gerard Deulofeu’s shot, he had both feet off the floor and lead with his right when a left would’ve hooked clear. Ultimately, his own goal didn’t matter. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Michael Carrick - 6 out of 10 Settled into his usual role of ticking possession over in the middle of the park and rarely looked to do anything more ambitious, save a delightful chip over the top late on for Rashford. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Marouane Fellaini - 8 out of 10 His delicate clipped finish for the opener complemented an uncharacteristically neat display. His movement for the goal was just as impressive. Getty Images Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Wayne Rooney - 8 out of 10 Masterful, surprisingly, in the first half as he flitted between holding midfield and ‘the hole’. Everton, like the press pack, spent a lot of their time trying to put a finger on where he was playing. They only did late on, once he had ran out of gas. Getty Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Anthony Martial - 9 out of 10 If United were ever to look back on this season fondly, you suspected it would have something to do with the Frenchman. He’s put them into a cup final, he may have to win it for them too. Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Jesse Lingard - 7 out of 10 Lively, neat play to set up his team-mates, particularly the cute backheel to send Rashford through, but lacked composure when presented with opportunities of his own. Everton vs Manchester United player ratings Marcus Rashford - 7 out of 10 Terrorised Everton as part of United’s quick, if not so sharp, attacking triumvirate. Like Lingard, guilty of spurning opportunities.

He was in place to make that early clearance because he had lingered in the deep - and at no time was he hell bent on driving ahead of Michael Carrick or Marouane Fellaini. Stay or go: Rooney’s based his decision on that quality of instinct which, at the end of a season in which his contribution has been as scrutinised as ever, he can trust.

On the receiving end of all this was Ross Barkley – not only because Rooney was displaying the acuity and intelligence in his passing that Everton’s brightest prospect does not possess, but because his attempt to close down his part in the game was so forlorn. What Barkley’s experience would have told him might be a fight between the two of them for the central midfield turned out to be something far more complicated to deal with. One minute Rooney was alongside him; the next he had drifted deep or out to the flank, looking for and finding the pockets of space. The older man was blowing a little at times but while a deficit might have existed in pace and oxygen, there was none such in the ideas and imagination column. For Barkley, the experience looked tantamount to staggering around in a forest at times.

There were moments, as this all unfolded, that you wondered whether redemption might belong to Louis van Gaal, too. For an hour at least, there was wonderful balance about it all: Martial, Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard weaving patterns, working their angles, the serial back-heeling which signals the supreme impudence of youth while Rooney patrolled, guided. When he was not going somewhere, he pointed the path out to another.

United players celebrate Martial's late winner with their fans (Getty)

That United failed to secure a two or three-goal cushion was extraordinary; an indictment of their shocking profligacy and of the English problem which could confound all of Hodgson’s hopes this summer: defending. They had been saved from the worst of themselves by David de Gea, plunging right to save the penalty which Tim Fosu-Mensah’s impetuous leap into Barkley in the area had brought, when Chris Smalling’s unfathomable attempt to clear substitute Gerard Deulofeu came in. Smalling had both feet off the ground and led with the right foot when he turned the ball into his own net. The trajectory of the ball told that only the left would have done it.