Alan Shearer says it’s impossible for Sam Allardyce to name a permanent England Captain

Take Wayne Rooney, is he guaranteed to start? No-one is, because there is not one player at this moment in time that is guaranteed to start in an England shirt because of their performances in the European Championships.

I know it will be a big story in the media if he doesn’t name Rooney as the captain but knowing Wayne, I think he’ll accept it and understand it because even he didn’t perform well enough during the Euros. Even he’s not guaranteed his place.

Being England captain is much more than just being a leader on the pitch. You are there as an ambassador and a figurehead. You’re the one people come to, and the one the opposition look at and see as the permanent guy in the team. The honour of it is unbelievable.

Allardyce to use skipper search as “motivating factor”

I think Sam will use the fact that he’s looking for a permanent captain as a motivating factor, and look for players to effectively put their hand up for it and demand it by putting in great performances in the first few games of the World Cup qualifying campaign. In effect he’ll be saying to them “do you want it, because it’s up for grabs?”

The next permanent England Captain needs to be a player that is one, guaranteed to start, two, someone that the other players look up to and when things aren’t going right, they look to for inspiration to win a game or save a game from a difficult position.

That player isn’t there for England right now. The Euros proved that. There is a great incentive for a player to go out and perform on a regular basis for England, and then who knows, they could be the next England Captain.

One way of looking at it is that Sam has a blank sheet of paper to start with, and it can’t get any worse than it was in the Euros. He is basically starting from scratch, with his own methods and his own backroom staff but I don’t believe he has to name his permanent captain just yet.

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