England veteran Jermain Defoe set to return from worldwide wilderness

England boss Gareth Southgate has made it clear that Wayne Rooney’s global career is far from over.

Jermain Defoe is poised to represent his country for the first time in nearly three and a half years as Gareth Southgate seeks to prise apart Lithuania’s attempts at stubborn defence and maintain England’s leadership of Group F.

England have been in good defensive form of late (ignoring last week’s 1-0 friendly loss to Germany).

Southgate cited Terry Venables as an example of an England manager who won over a squad full of strong personalities, including Tony Adams, Alan Shearer and Stuart Pearce, by letting them have their say when it came to tactics and game-planning.

It was reported Rooney declined Southgate’s invitation to attend a squad meeting on Monday because he was unhappy to have been dropped.

“I’m not thinking that we can beat England in ball possession!”, said Lithuania goalkeeper Ernestas Setkus.

“Wayne had to have treatment, so no problem from my point of view. The more important thing for me was those guys felt they’d been invited”.

“Wayne has been a sensational footballer for England and Manchester United for almost 15 years”, Scholes said.

Gary Cahill is suspended and Chris Smalling has pulled out through injury, Ben Gibson has been called up as his replacement. They’re good in counter-attack and against Scotland scored with some good interplay with their front players.

“And the culture in rugby I think we can take something from“.

While England’s best players will be involved with the British and Irish Lions in June, Jones has the chance to further build their depth with two tests in Argentina.

The England Supporters Travel Club is to withdraw the membership of any fans involved in anti-social, xenophobic or disrespectful behaviour on Wednesday and Southgate urged fans to remember that they represent their country when travelling overseas.

“That’s for him and his club to deal with”.

Lithuania, on the other hand, were never expected to give much competition for the top places in the group. If you are at a club like Manchester United it’s going to be the same. He was a player not too long ago so he knows how we think and what’s going through our minds.

Nowadays, many football fans see an worldwide break as an inconvenience, an unwanted distraction from the domestic game. “We have our plan and we’ll try to make it tomorrow”.