Harry Redknapp would include Wayne Rooney in Euro 2012 squad

Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp believes Wayne Rooney should be included in England's Euro 2012 squad despite being given "a painful, painful lesson" and banned for the first three games of the tournament by UEFA.

Rooney yesterday received the suspension for his dismissal in last Friday's final qualifier in Montenegro and will therefore miss all of Fabio Capello's side's group matches in Poland and Ukraine.

But Redknapp believes it is worth taking him to the tournament anyway.

"Fabio Capello has to make a decision now," Redknapp, who has been linked with succeeding Capello after next summer, wrote in The Sun.

"And if I were England manager I wouldn't start Wayne Rooney in any international from now until the Euro 2012 tournament.

"But we should definitely still take him to the finals. England should be strong enough to get through the group without Rooney and then we'll have him raring to go in the later stages."

Redknapp added: "I was seriously shocked when I heard he'd copped a three-game ban for his kick at Montenegro's Miodrag Dzudovic.

"It is a painful, painful lesson for Rooney that he cannot do things like that.

"I have sympathy for him but those are the rules so he must accept it."

PA