Late goal gives Allardyce winning start to England reign

But the England captain had a contradicting view to Allardyce’s comments, insisting he played where the manager told him to, although he admitted the change of role was beneficial.

“Today Wayne played wherever he wanted to”, Allardyce said after his first match in charge.

Lallana popped up with a 95th minute victor with the game seemingly headed for a draw after Martin Skrtel was sent off for a stamp on Harry Kane just before the hour mark.

He said: “Too much is getting made about it”.

Allardyce said he “can’t stop” Rooney from dropping into midfield and the player has a “lot more experience at worldwide football” than he does. Allardyce will know this better than anyone and not until Russian Federation 2018 will anyone be truly able to tell – unless England’s pattern of play changes radically and they turn into a team of incisiveness and beauty – whether he can inspire his team to greater things than Hodgson and a raft of other managers who came before. We have dominated the game, and in the end got a very important win.

“I think it was possession for possession’s sake for the opening 45 minutes rather than trying to break the opposition down”.

Rooney’s move into midfield has taken away the attacking edge of England’s leading goalscorer and the Manchester United forward ended the game playing in a deep lying role alongside Eric Dier.

“There is a long way to go until the scars have been healed but it is a start”.

“We didn’t panic, I think that’s the main thing”, the 30-year-old Rooney said.

“But we are going to have to be more clinical, which we proved right the way up to the Euros when we didn’t seem to have a problem scoring a goal”.

World Champions Germany began the defence of their 2014 World Cup triumph with a 3-0 win away to Norway in a Group C encounter World Cup qualifier.

Mueller scrambled in the opener in the 15th minute after his first attempt was blocked by Even Hovland and Havard Nordtveit before heading in his second on the hour.

Mueller set up Kimmich just before the break, spotting his run and laying off the ball for the 21-year-old to score his first worldwide goal, and the forward then rounded off the scoring on the hour, heading in a precise cross from Sami Khedira.

Meanwhile, in the same group, Denmark edged Armenia 1-0 on an early goal from Christian Eriksen, who later on missed a penalty.

Poland blew a two-goal lead as Kazakhstan fought back to draw the match.