The knee ligament injury to Manchester United and England captain Wayne Rooney has come at a crucial time, just as the striker was beginning to find his best form of the season. The striker picked up the injury in United’s 2 -1 defeat at Sunderland in February, after playing through the pain barrier without even realising he had a problem.

It was reported earlier this week that he may be forced to miss the European Championship this summer. He is currently wearing a leg brace, and will do for the next two weeks, but if that doesn’t work he may need surgery, which could effectively rule him out of the tournament.

While England manager Roy Hodgson will see this as a crushing blow, it might not be as bad as he thinks. Rooney is the last remaining player of the so-called “Golden Generation”, which promised so much, but ultimately delivered nothing.

Players such as Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole were seen as undroppable by every England manager over the last ten years, despite none of them really delivering on the big stage. An obvious example of this would be the constant attempts to play Gerrard and Lampard together. It is rumoured that Paul Scholes retired from international football before the age of 30 because he became so disillusioned at being played out wide to accommodate them.

Hodgson himself is in a no-win situation as well, because if he starts Rooney and England lose, the press will be calling for him to be dropped. If he drops him and they lose, people will say that he shouldn’t have been dropped. But his injury may actually make the decision for him.

It is already confirmed that he will definitely miss England’s friendly matches against Germany and the Netherlands at the end of this month, so Hodgson will get to see how his side play, and against decent opposition, without his talisman. But as England captain, it stands to reason that if Rooney is fit, he will probably always start.

It’s not as though England are short of options up front. Jamie Vardy and Harry Kane have been banging in the goals for fun this season. If they both steer clear of injury, they should be nailed on for a place in the squad. If Daniel Sturridge can also stay out of the treatment room, put a string of appearances together and play himself into a bit of form, you would expect him to be on the plane to France as well. There are other options as well, such as Danny Welbeck, who is definitely a favourite of Roy Hodgson. Even Saido Berahino, if he can knuckle down and show everybody what the fuss was all about in the first place, may fancy his chances.

All of the above are just starting to hit their stride as professional footballers, and hungry to do well. The fact that there may be an extra place in the squad up for grabs if Rooney doesn’t recover in time may cause one or two to up their game even more as we approach the business end of the season. It’s also worth noting that, even if he is back on the pitch before the end of the season, Rooney probably won’t be match fit.

It is true that he hasn’t produced the goods at a major tournament since Euro 2004. It is also true, however, that he was rushed back to fitness for both the 2006 and 2010 World Cups – and this was when he was in his prime. And Rooney has always needed about five or six games to get back into his stride following a spell on the sidelines, whether it be for injury or suspension.

This is a different Wayne Rooney to the one who was put in oxygen chambers in order to get him fit for previous tournaments. While still a fine player, probably the best long range passer of a ball at Old Trafford, he no longer has that explosive turn of pace that made him stand out from the crowd. He still has a great shot from distance, but a lot of his game is now based on intelligence and experience, and just like United themselves, he hasn’t had the best of seasons.

If the England squad were only picked on the form shown over the course of the season, rather than reputation, it’s very doubtful that he would even make the final 23. Too many other English strikers are performing much better for their clubs than he is.

The ankle injury Rooney sustained away to Bayern Munich in March 2010 put a serious hex on his (and United’s) season, and ensured that he wasn’t fully fit when England travelled to South Africa for that year’s World Cup. He had been on fire that season, and scored 34 goals in all competitions up until that point – he didn’t score another goal from open play until New Year’s Day 2011. Many United fans believe his slow decline began there, as he has never looked anywhere as good as he did that season. He matched that goal tally in 2011–12, as his club narrowly lost out to Manchester City in the title race, but he clearly wasn’t the same player.

Had Rooney been 100% fit for the 2006 and 2010 World Cups, you get the sense that England would have at least put a better showing than they did, as he was one of the best in the world at the time. There is no question that he would have walked into any squad in the world back then. It’s fair to say, however, that if he should miss this summer’s tournament, however, it’s debatable whether they will even miss him. In fact, seeing the last member of the “Golden Generation” left out might be just the tonic Hodgson and his young England squad need.