How Rooney can be Everton's answer and torment Hodgson once more

An insistence on jamming Wayne Rooney into a starting XI was a common theme of Roy Hodgson's later months in charge of England. To the detriment of Dele Alli, Raheem Sterling, Adam Lallana, and Marcus Rashford, not to mention anyone who had the misfortune of watching a Three Lions match, Rooney was shoved in like a partly deflated rubber ring hurriedly crammed into a suitcase. It probably wasn't until Rooney was hauled off 86 minutes into the infamous 2-1 loss to Iceland that Hodgson realised his critical error. He had to resign.

The overriding narrative in Saturday's meeting between Hodgson's Crystal Palace and Sam Allardyce's Everton at the latter's Goodison Park abode will be the battle between two former England managers. There is animosity between the pair; Allardyce was filmed mocking Hodgson's rhotacism during the newspaper sting that ended his 67-day international tenure - calling him, inventively, "Woy" - and also accused his predecessor of indecision. There has been no apology from Allardyce for his words, with Hodgson saying on Thursday: "My relationship with him before I always thought was good. Now, I would expect it to be less good."

But there is an opportunity for Rooney to upstage the two managers and help correct the Toffees' stumble of one win in nine matches across all competitions. Allardyce has aired reservations at simultaneously fielding Rooney and Gylfi Sigurdsson for Everton - a remnant of Ronald Koeman's hungry supermarket sweep of No. 10s last summer - but it could, in fact, be the answer. Inconveniently for Hodgson, Rooney could flourish in exactly the same spot in which he appeared to get in everybody's way for England, and for the man who showed minimum grace when succeeding Palace's incumbent overseer in the national team fold.

The Everton players cannot be absolved from blame for their individual performances in the 5-1 evisceration at Arsenal last week, but the most culpable party has to be Allardyce. He's a self-serving manager, happily taking credit for his tactics in wins and blaming his players for losses, but his decision to drop Rooney and Sigurdsson was a poor one. Yannick Bolasie is still trying to regain match fitness and it showed, and Eliaquim Mangala's positional perplexity on the left of a back-three culminated in an awful debut. It was the wrong match to experiment, building pressure ahead of a winnable Eagles meeting, and leading to calls to select one or both of Rooney and Sigurdsson.

The truth is, contrary to Allardyce's belief, a Sigurdsson-Rooney combo in midfield has been working well:

The addition of Theo Walcott should assist Allardyce's ability to deploy Rooney and Sigurdsson at the same time. The width Walcott provides, and the promising partnership he showed with Seamus Coleman against Leicester City on the last day of January, brings greater variety to the Toffees' previously turgid attack. It doesn't have to be balanced - the jumble Koeman left behind doesn't exactly lend itself to equilibrium - so reviving the duties Sigurdsson had on the left for Swansea City will bring something different to Walcott on the other flank. While the Icelander drifts inside to prod passes and fire shots with his stunning right foot, Rooney is left to his own devices - on paper, the No. 10 in a 4-2-3-1 system, but also someone who can drop and forge a 4-3-3 when the middle needs insulation.

When additional speed is required, Bolasie can be called upon. Considering the limited chances granted to RB Leipzig loanee Ademola Lookman and Nikola Vlasic, pace isn't high on Allardyce's list when pondering team selections anyway.

This is obviously a temporary measure. As Rooney's powers have dwindled, his greatest attributes are his work rate, experience, and the aura that comes with being a player loaded with medals and boasting a host of records. Longevity isn't required at Everton either: Marco Silva's name is still linked with the manager's job on Merseyside, with whispers suggesting Allardyce could pack up and leave at the end of the season.

Posting Rooney into that No. 10 position is making the best of a bad situation for Allardyce, however, as his place in the lineup doesn't come at the cost of more talented players' spots in the starting XI, or how comfortably they fit into the schematic. For that reason, Hodgson may belatedly learn a costly lesson late into his managerial career.