No rush on Rooney

SVEN-Goran Eriksson insisted that he would resist the growing clamour for Wayne Rooney to be handed his first start for England against Turkey in the Stadium of Light on Wednesday night in their next Euro 2004 qualifier- even if Emile Heskey is ruled out by injury.

Heskey injured his knee during Saturday's unconvincing 2-0 victory away to Liechtenstein and was replaced by Rooney with 11 minutes left.

Rooney arrived to rousing ovation from the England fans in Vaduz, with former England boss Bobby Robson later joining the calls for him to start.

However, Eriksson is still hopeful that the Liverpool forward will recover in time to face Turkey. And even if Heskey is ruled out, the England coach is still reluctant to press Rooney into the starting line-up despite his belief that the 17-year-old striker is ready for the challenge.

Eriksson, who will also resist calling up Alan Smith, would instead turn to Darius Vassell or Francis Jeffers, or ask Paul Scholes to push further forward.

He explained: "I think Wayne Rooney is ready but only part-time. I don't think we should expect him to come in and resolve a game against Turkey.

"It could happen who knows if he comes on, as he's physically strong, good on the ball, quick and he scores goals. He might be good enough to start but we'll see. Let me think about it but maybe starting him isn't fair on him.

"Sometimes I am accused for picking him in the squad and suddenly people want him to play from the start. I don't know if I'm too cautious. He deserves to be in the squad and let's see what happens on Wednesday.

"From what I see of him in training and when he came on against Australia and Liechtenstein, he's doing okay. He doesn't seem to be worried or nervous." Despite repeated criticism of his lack of goals, Heskey, whose team-mates stress the importance of his all-round play, set up Michael Owen for the opener in Vaduz and won the free-kick from which David Beckham struck.

"Emile didn't seem too bad at half-time, he said it was no problem to go on. But he started limping after a while in the second-half and so we took him off," said Eriksson.

"We will see if it's only a knock or not. I think Heskey will be okay for Wednesday, I hope so."

Eriksson has sent Owen Hargreaves back to Munich for treatment on a back injury, while David Seaman will not be joining up with the squad next week in Sunderland.

However, the England coach is still hopeful that Sol Campbell will have recovered from his Achilles injury to take part in today's full training session.

"I'm very doubtful about David Seaman joining us as I don't even think he's started training yet. Sol meets up with us in Sunderland and hopefully he can train with us," said the England manager.

Campbell would be expected to replace Gareth Southgate in central defence in what, if Heskey is fit, should be the only change to the England line-up. Kieron Dyer gave a promising performance on the left flank which, although lacking a final product, certainly impressed the England coach.

"He created a lot of problems for them. We could have scored once or twice from out there and he made their full-back's life very difficult. He used his pace very well," he observed.

"Since I've been here, that was the best I've seen him in the national team. I think he did well."

Eriksson attempted to put a positive gloss on a largely unconvincing display by his team.

"I think we did a good professional job, if you take away the first few minutes and the last 10 minutes, we did what we had to do."