Wayne Rooney has been getting a lot of stick this season for his lack of form and has been dropped from Manchester United and now England. With the fans of club and country calling for his head before this point, is it all justified?

Look, I’m an Arsenal fan and do I dislike Rooney? Of course. But I respect him as a player. His aggression, determination and motivation to succeed is something that Arsenal could have done with, especially in our barren spells pre-2014.

Yes, his form has dipped but does he deserve to be slated like he has done? He’s a player who has given his all to Manchester United and England for the best part of the decade. He’s never moaned or whined, and for me has been nothing but a team player.

He sacrificed his own glory to accommodate a certain Cristiano Ronaldo to flourish and for England he has always given 110%. Yes he’s lost a little pace but who doesn’t in their 30’s. This is a guy who has played in excess of 40 games per season and has played in major tournaments for his country.

Most of what I’ve heard from football fans and experts is that “Rooney should have been dropped a long time ago” and that “he’s well passed it”. Well for me that is disrespectful to a player who has always just gone on and given it his all on the football pitch.

Even when he was officially dropped by Gareth Southgate, did Wayne Rooney decide to sulk and miss the press conference? No he did not. He went out there and answered all the snide questions he knew he would get from the press, and faced the situation head on.

You talk about a lot of cowards in the game today, players who are over pampered and are out of touch with reality. Players who whinge and moan at the earliest opportunity, and those who demand to be in the starting eleven.

Has Wayne Rooney ever been like that? No he hasn’t and for that he deserves our respect.

Every time International football comes around I die a little inside. Anyone following my Twitter feed will know that I hate International football with passion, and there’s a few reasons why:

• It breaks up the Premier League campaign, when all I care about is watching and following Arsenal.
• Because our squad is full of International players, it is inevitable that we will pick up injuries.
• And even if they don’t come back injured, then they’re shattered from flying half way across the world.
• England will never win anything anyway.
• English footballers are some of the most overrated and over pampered footballers going. The British media make out they’re world beaters and then they get found out against so called “weaker” International sides.
• England play some of the most boring football known to man. I don’t even watch them any more because it is less interesting than watching paint dry.
• International football just funds the corrupt organisation that is FIFA and Sepp Blatter.

Football is a global sport and International football isn’t as important as everyone makes out. Then we have the arguments about which player should play for which country.

We have ex-Arsenal man Eduardo, who is Brazilian, Deco was the same but played for Portugal, and most of the World Cup 98′ winning France squad weren’t really French – but what is French? You had Zidane (Algeria), Vieira (Senegal), Desailly (Ghana), Pires (Portugal), Djorkaeff (Armenia) and Henry and Thuram could be classed being from Guadalupe.

Personally, none of that bothers me and if you qualify to play for a certain International team then good on you I say. Plenty of Welsh, Irish and Scottish players were basically English. How Tony Cascarino ever played for the Republic of Ireland I’ll never know.

But I’m not completely oblivious to the demand of International football. People do like it (for some reason) and I admit, I do get caught up in the hype surrounding the World Cup and European Championships. What I would like to see, is a complete overhaul of International football.

In the summer, the years we don’t have a World Cup or European Championships, we should just have all of the qualification group games played within a 2 month period. There would be no distraction to domestic league campaigns, and no backlash from the Football Associations of different countries.

And more importantly, it would capture the imagination of the fans again. Obviously it wouldn’t be like a proper World Cup or European Championships, but having a qualification tournament in the summer would allow the fans to get completely behind their team without this ridiculous situation where domestic and International games are mixed together.

And furthermore, there wouldn’t be arguments from International managers and club managers about injured players, blah blah blah.

Really, FIFA should sign me up now, I’m a genius.