It has all seemed so joyless at times, with so many long, difficult periods when it has seemed like a black drape could be placed over the entire team it might surprise you to learn that when Gareth Southgate took his seat in the Stadion Stozice and set out his reasons for dropping Wayne Rooney it was seven years to the day since England had lost a qualifying fixture.

It can seem almost a trick of the mind to remind yourself that England are unbeaten in all qualifiers since a 2009 defeat in Ukraine when Rob Green was sent off and, losing 1-0, Fabio Capello brought on Carlton Cole to try to conjure up a late equaliser.

England captain Wayne Rooney dropped by Gareth Southgate Read more

Of 31 games, 24 have been won and England have a goal difference of plus 73. Anyone unfamiliar with the England tragicomedy would look at that record and never know this is a team that appears to be locked in a permanent battle for credibility.

In truth it has been a grey team occupying a grey place for longer than most people would probably care to remember, and especially in the years since Rooney’s body started to fail him, the touch stopped being quite so certain, and a footballer who once always backed himself in any situation gave up taking on opponents. The young Rooney was like a force of nature. “He’s incredible,” Sven Goran Eriksson said at Euro 2004. “I don’t remember anyone making such an impression on a tournament since Pelé in 1958.”

English football loved the assassin‑faced baby but the days have passed since he made us quicken our step en route to wherever he was playing. What we are left with now is a fading old pro, approaching his 31st birthday, after starting at the age of 16 and never going through a season without playing at least 42 games.

That is why Southgate has done the sensible thing, removing Rooney, and we should probably avoid calling it courageous, or bottle, or any of the other words that have been applied so far. This is what it is: overdue. It cannot have been easy for Southgate to break the news but Rooney’s deterioration has not just been accelerating since the start of the season. There are plenty of us who have been suggesting for the past year or so that it was time to cut him free, and the only issue really for debate is why Sam Allardyce, and especially Roy Hodgson, always seemed so in thrall of the Manchester United player.

The mind goes back to an audience with Hodgson just before Euro 2016, sitting around a table at L’Escargot in Soho, when the England manager challenged the football writers in his company to jot down their starting lineups for the tournament. Six chose Rooney, nine left him out. It was not an exact science, admittedly, but it was still probably a reasonable reflection of public opinion. Hodgson smiled thinly, folded up the pieces of paper and passed them to a press officer, saying we would look back at the end of the tournament to see who was right.

He refused to budge and did not even complain, publicly or privately, when Rooney independently decided to remove Harry Kane as England’s designated corner-taker at Euro 2016 without even bothering to tell his manager. Rooney was hardly alone in wondering why the team’s tallest striker was taking corners rather than trying to head them.

Jordan Henderson’s leadership at Liverpool marked him out for England Read more

All the same it was fairly breathtaking for one of the players to ignore the manager’s tactics so brazenly and an indication of the power he wielded until now.

Rooney did, in fairness, start Euro 2016 looking reasonably competent in his new midfield role but when he described himself in one press conference as a better player than earlier in his career it made you wince to hear a once-mighty player trying, unsuccessfully, to manipulate the headlines. The next game was against Iceland and his contribution on that infamous night in Nice can probably be summed by L’Equipe’s ratings the following morning. England’s captain, record goalscorer and automatic first-team pick was given four out of 10.

The truth is very few people will argue with Southgate’s choice. When it comes to England’s forwards, it has been a long time since Rooney menaced defences in the manner of Kane, Jamie Vardy, Daniel Sturridge and now Marcus Rashford. Maybe it is true, therefore, that he is better suited to a deeper position, but it is also difficult to recall the last time a centre-forward moved back to midfield and excelled. Dwight Yorke did OK-ish. Alan Smith had a go. It is not a lengthy list, by any means.

David Moyes always thought this was the natural path for a 30-something Rooney but the former United manager had his own misgivings because he was not sure the player he brought through at Everton was cut out to play the little give-and-go passes that helped to make Paul Scholes and Michael Carrick such elegant performers. Rooney’s speciality became the sprayed cross‑field pass out to the wings. He played that one beautifully sometimes and on each occasion, it would get a round of applause. But it was a deception.

John Robertson used to love those passes before Brian Clough converted him from a mediocre central midfielder into a double European Cup winner on Nottingham Forest’s left wing. “I got great pleasure pinging the ball from left-half to outside-right and right-half to outside-left,” Robertson recalls in his autobiography. “If I knocked it 40 to 50 yards to feet I used to get a lot of personal satisfaction, but Cloughie summed up passes like that in one dismissive word – ‘decoration’.”

José Mourinho does not seem too keen, either. “With me, he will never be a No6, playing 50 metres from goal,” he said of Rooney in his first press conference as United manager. “Yes, his passing is amazing but mine is also amazing without pressure.” Mourinho could hardly have been more emphatic that he will never use Rooney as a midfielder. Which is a problem because Rooney is adamant it is his best position and has used the media to make it clear he wants a rethink. Something has to give and this is the first time in Rooney’s career his performances have weakened, rather than strengthened, his bargaining position.

Some will argue he should have followed the advice of Alan Shearer, Peter Shilton and many others by announcing after Euro 2016 that he was retiring from England duties to devote himself to extending his club career. Yet Rooney has always valued international football and, on that front, Southgate is right when he says the player did not warrant the social-media schadenfreude or the minor boos that were audible in the game against Malta on Saturday.

Rooney has never been the type to conjure up make-believe injuries to cry off international duty. He will continue to turn up, he says, even if he is not guaranteed a place. His request to attend a press conference, having just been dropped, is a sign of the man, and it gets lost sometimes just how influential he is within the England camp and how much respect he has from the younger players. His international career has stretched over 13 years, including 21 occasions wearing the captain’s armband. Rooney’s 117 caps put him eight short of Shilton’s record and he still might establish himself as England’s all-time appearance-maker.

“I’ve played 13 years for England, non-stop, and given everything,” he said. But here he was, being asked to comment on Jordan Henderson’s leadership qualities as the replacement captain. He looked utterly miserable.