Aggressive England are a different proposition to last year's World Cup flops, says Wayne Rooney

England fly to Turin on Monday depleted in numbers but with seven wins out of seven since their early exit in Brazil

Wayne Rooney celebrates scoring against Lithuania (Getty Images)

Wayne Rooney says Italy will face a very different England team on Tuesday to the side they beat at last year’s World Cup – one that has learnt to be more aggressive and capable of putting opponents under extreme pressure.

England fly to Turin on Monday depleted in numbers but with seven wins out of seven since their early exit in Brazil, five of those victories in European Championship qualification. Italy drew 2-2 with the Bulgaria on Saturday and are second in group H, two points behind the leaders Croatia.

During the World Cup, Rooney said that England needed to be more “nasty” in their approach. After the 4-0 win over Lithuania on Friday he said the team had to choose their moment to put opponents under pressure but that when they did England would be very hard to play against.

“You don’t want to go into games and have teams enjoy playing you, you want teams to look at England and think, ‘We know we have a tough game. It is going to be physically hard against them, we are going to have to defend and be good on the ball to keep the ball.’ That is what we want teams to feel when they come up against us. Certainly, since the World Cup we have done that.

“Maybe not so much nasty, but being aggressive. Not in a bad way in terms of we are putting really hard tackles in, but we are getting up to the ball quickly, we are harrying teams and making them make mistakes. At the minute we have the tactics right.”

Danny Welbeck has become the ninth England player to leave the squad with injury, and only 20 will travel, down from the usual 23. Italy also have injury problems and have called up full-backs Davide Santon and Ignazio Abate.

The injuries have reduced manager Roy Hodgson’s options. Harry Kane is likely to start the friendly in Turin and Ross Barkley could take the place of Raheem Sterling, who has withdrawn from the squad. Chris Smalling is also likely to come into the team in the centre of defence.

Rooney said: “It will be a different game again on Tuesday. Italy will be very good on the ball and there will be times when they are able to play out so we have to make sure we pick our moments right and not get picked off. There will be times when we go, times when we sit off.

“It is moving in a good direction. We are learning with every game since the World Cup, we are getting better and there is an excitement back about England.”