image: bbc.co.uk

The long awaited Rooney scan results are in and they are... inconclusive. The Manchester United striker will have another scan before the final June 9th squad deadline, and if that brings bad news then Eriksson will have one final chance to replace Rooney with another striker. But if that scan is even slightly encouraging we can expect Sven to include Rooney in his squad, with a further scan planned for June 14th.

Taking Rooney is a gamble not just because he might not play but because Sven has failed to compensate with reserve strikers. It's all very well arguing that Joe Cole or Steven Gerrard can play as a 'second striker', but that still leaves us with just Michael Owen and Peter Crouch as 'first strikers'. An injury to Crouch would leave Owen as the only real striker and England completely lacking any form of target man.

This could even lead to Alex Ferguson's worst nightmare: a half-fit Rooney being pressed into action for an England squad with no alternatives. The answer is to sacrifice one of the 9 midfielders (I would argue we could cope without either Jenas, Carrick or even Hargreaves) for a recognised centre forward (Bent, Defoe, or even Johnson) because given one stroke of bad luck we will desperately need them.