England captain Wayne Rooney is set to be left out of the Three Lion’s starting line-up for their World Cup qualifier against Slovenia on Tuesday.

The 30-year-old will be named on the substitutes’ bench for their up and coming match with Gareth Southgate likely to name Eric Dier and Jordan Henderson as his central midfielders, according to SkySports.

The interim manager says he is full backing the Manchester United captain and insists that he should continue playing with pride as captain of the Three Lions.

‘The criticism of him is at times unfair,’ Southgate said.

‘He ploughs on and plays with pride and captains his country with pride.

‘I look back to John Terry, Frank Lampard, and Ashley Cole. In their time with England, they took an enormous amount of criticism and yet when you look at the number of caps they got they were the guys that kept turning out.

‘They were the ones that really put themselves on the line when some other players would not put themselves forward in those moments and withdrew from squads when the going got tough.’

England against Slovenia kicks off at 20:45.