Wayne Rooney, my man of words, can take us places, believes Hodgson

Manchester United forward gave speech to rest of squad ahead of final pre-tournament friendly, against Portugal on Thursday

Captain Wayne Rooney says he has never felt in better shape ahead of a major tournament with England (Getty)

“I’d like to offer an adjunct to what Wayne has said,” declared Roy Hodgson, interrupting the flow of the last pre-match press conference before England’s journey into French territory.

He was itching to convey what he had witnessed in a meeting room at The Grove hotel in Hertfordshire on Wednesday night, having suggested to his captain that he might wish to follow up the words of Dr Steve Peters, England’s sports psychiatrist in England, with some motivational words of his own about the challenge that lies ahead.

Rooney had not been bounced into talking. “I did give him some [advance] warning. He had an afternoon,” Hodgson said.

But the intelligence of what he told a squad which is younger than any England have sent into a tournament for years - “This is how it was. This is what I experienced,” as Hodgson paraphrased it - had impressed the manager greatly.

Rooney’s response to Hodgson disclosing all of this was, of itself, revealing.

There was none of the gauche self-consciousness he would once have felt at being talked about whilst in the room and a gentle nod of recognition that poring over the minutiae of England’s team meetings in this way is part and parcel of the international territory.

You imagine that if Rooney has heard Hodgson eulogising about him once in this way then he’s done so 100 times, given that the little speech the striker gave at Wembley after scoring his 50th international goal last autumn is another vignette that the manager needs no encouragement to talk about.

It’s how the Football Association want their leaders to be, these days. Head of performance Dave Reddin wants captains to share responsibility for talking and analysing.

He’ll tell you that just because Rooney didn’t go a private school, as did most of the England rugby players Reddin once helped coach, he is no less intellectually able than them when the talk turns to sport.

Rooney’s development into a captain of maturity and composure delivers the national team some certainties in their talisman which they have not possessed at these junctures in recent years.

The last time they set off for a European Championships – with Hodgson managing the 2012 team Fabio Capello had put together for Poland and Ukraine – Rooney was being pictured in a casino in Vegas with his then Manchester United teammate Wes Brown.

The player’s 11-hour flight to the West Coast and basic hotel gym facilities there were his dubious means of preparing for the tournament, after he had been dismissed in England’s final qualifier in Montenegro and told he would miss the first two games of the finals, against France and Sweden.

Taken with the 2006 metatarsal and the ankle injury before the 2010 World Cup, the Las Vegas pictures contributed to a depressing pattern where he and international tournaments were concerned.

Ahead of this tournament, though, the obligatory injury scare was sustained early - at Sunderland in February – allowing him time to recuperate. Now, the picture seems different.

“It's certainly as good as I've felt going into a tournament, and that's largely because I'm injury free,” Rooney could reflect on Wednesday.

“I've had little concerns going into previous tournaments playing on my mind, but I have no concerns about that now.

A foot injury suffered at Chelsea before the 2006 World Cup limited Wayne Rooney's impact on the finals (Getty)

"I came back with still quite a few games to play and I haven't felt it at all since coming back. So I've had no injury problems at all. Hopefully it doesn't crop up in the next few weeks. Physically I feel fine.”

Though he would not be inclined to say so, a sense of knowing what a captain needs to say is something Louis van Gaal has helped to nurture in him.

Few within the Manchester United squad have shed tears over the Dutchman’s departure as manager but it was before the 3-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur last March that Van Gaal encouraged Rooney to get up onto his feet and offer some inspiration, which he did with some pananche.

The grin on Rooney’s face when he was asked for his thoughts on Jose Mourinho’s appointment as Van Gaal’s successor told its own story on Wednesday of how what lies in store beyond June will energise him for England’s tournament. “Exciting times ahead for Manchester United,” as Rooney put it.

It would not be crassly over-optimistic to say that the same words apply to England.

Fortune has bestowed Hodgson with the crop of exciting young players which he could not have foreseen when taking the squad to their Krakow base in 2012.

“I don't know if I could have imagined this [back then],” he said. He was bestowed by Capello with a group of experienced, if proletarian, group of defenders and holding midfield players and very few options when it came to how to attack in 2012.

Now he has been able to “tip the balance” from a defence-minded to attack-minded side, as he puts it.

“I didn't want to sacrifice [the attacking players] to sort of sure up with players who maybe might in some ways cover position slightly better but maybe don't have the qualities of the players I'd be leaving out,” he said.

Athleticism and mobility were the attributes he wanted to talk about and Harry Kane, Jamie Vardy, Dele Alli and Raheem Sterling all offer it, of course.

These are the weapons for that counter-attacking force. When it was put to him that Leicester City and Atletico Madrid had demonstrated in the past season the benefits of a system which does not involve huge periods of ball possession, he was enthusiastic.

Wayne Rooney came off the bench to score in last Friday's friendly victory over Australia (Getty)

““We're prepared to do that. We're very good on the counter-attack, so if we're pressed back I won't be terribly concerned,” he said.

“We understand the principles of defending, and the rivals would have to watch out for our power on the break.”

You flinched slightly at Hodgson’s casual indifference when asked what formation he might settle for in the last pre-tournament friendly against Portugal.

“Formations don't win you games. Players win you matches. It’s 11 v 11. You should know that,” he replied.

It will take more than a group of athletic individuals to beat the best of the nations who lie ahead. Systems do matter.

Those with longer memories will also recall that we were being told before the Brazil World Cup that a counter-attacking game would do the job for England.

The “principles of defending” didn’t work then and could be just as much of a problem now. Gary Cahill, Chris Smalling and John Stones are all prone to errors.

One of the core messages Peters would have been trying to force home before Rooney got to his feet on Wednesday is that England should not head into this tournament aiming to win it.

One of his fundamentals is that trophies can only ever be dreams: inspiring, motivating reasons to get up in the morning, which are subject to the vagaries of outside forces and, therefore, something you can never plan for, or expect. Aiming to win only builds pressure.

Rooney will have offered something more visceral, along the lines of ‘we can win it’, and since Peters’ services with the squad are not guaranteed beyond next week, because he has other commitments, the captain’s message will have to prevail.

“We've been a long time as a group of players,” he said. “But now is the big test. The biggest test.”