Sam Allardyce plays down Wayne Rooney's reaction to being subbed
Friday 13 April 2018 10:39, UK
Everton manager Sam Allardyce says the reaction to Wayne Rooney's conduct after being substituted against Liverpool has been overblown.
The 32-year-old appeared upset to have been taken off by Allardyce after less than an hour on the pitch during last Saturday's Merseyside derby.
The former England manager believes too much has been made of the incident and said: "You're asking players to be angels. Stop it. We live in a politically correct world.
"A reaction of disappointment from a player coming off is to be expected. One would ask him not to do it in the public eye but sometimes that can't be helped.
"As proud an Everton fan as he is, and playing for Everton, that's where the reaction came from."
When asked if he has spoken to Rooney about the incident, the former England boss replied: "We speak every week. There's no problem with Yannick Bolasie, Tom Davies or Wayne Rooney. I substituted all three of those players last week.
"Is Wayne happy with his role at the club? It's the role he wants to play, we've said it many times.
"Our tactical change was for the benefit of the team on Saturday. It's a team game and you make a decision on the day to try and help the team to get a victory. We did that by [making] three substitutions and continued to press Liverpool for the last 20 minutes and created our best two chances.
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"We were all very disappointed in the end that we didn't win it, so our substitutions had an effect because players like Yannick and Tom had done the job before that.
"Like every player as the game goes on, you get a little bit fatigued so you bring three fresh legs on and that had a positive effect."
