Angry boss McClaren refutes Rooney row claims

ENGLAND coach Steve McClaren has rejected reports of a rift with star striker Wayne Rooney.

In the aftermath of Saturday’s goalless European Championship qualifier with Israel in Tel Aviv, it has been suggested McClaren had a major dressing room bust-up with Rooney over England’s lack of cutting edge.

Having found the net only once in the last five games, England are on their worst scoring run since 1981 and it was said Rooney reacted angrily to McClaren’s comments, believing he was getting all the blame.

However, while McClaren refused to divulge the content of discussions that have taken place within the confines of the dressing room, he denied his relationship with the Manchester United striker has taken a nose-dive.

“It is an absolute load of rubbish,” he said. “What happens in the dressing room, stays in the dressing room. I get on well with Wayne.”

Feeling the need to correct a few damning assertions, both of England’s performance and his ability as a coach, McClaren brought forward his planned pre-match press conference ahead of tomorrow’s encounter with Andorra.

The former Middlesbrough boss hit out at further reports of a crack in his coaching partnership with Terry Venables before turning attention back to Saturday’s draw in Tel Aviv.

“People in football who I respect have phoned me and said the only thing wrong with our performance on Saturday was that we didn’t get a goal,” he said.

“We were the ones who dominated, we were the ones who had the attitude to win and we were the only ones who looked like scoring.”

McClaren conceded England’s lack of goals is a problem, although he is refusing to pin the blame on individuals even though Rooney has not scored in a competitive game since Euro 2004.

Instead, he believes hard work in training will bring its reward.

The part-timers from Andorra hardly offer a reliable form guide but at least they give England the chance to change the damning statistics.

“Everybody can see the goals issue is a problem, it is something we have talked about before,” McClaren said.

“I am not going to pick out individuals. We could go through the whole team like that. My job is to make sure we score — and there are things we can do about that.”