Everton manager Sam Allardyce has reiterated that there is no problem between himself and Wayne Rooney following his decision to sub the midfielder during the goalless draw with Liverpool.
Rooney, being fielded in his favoured deeper position this season, reacted angrily to being hauled off with less than an hour played for the second game running.
Allardyce revealed after the match that he would hold talks with the former England captain to discuss his decision, but he insists that the whole situation has been blown completely out of proportion.
"You're asking players to be angels. Stop it. We live in a politically correct world. A reaction of disappointment from a player coming off is to be expected," he told reporters ahead of Saturday's trip to Swansea City. "One would ask him not to do it in the public eye but sometimes that can't be helped. As proud an Everton fan as he is, and playing for Everton, that's where the reaction came from.
"We speak every week. There's no problem with Yannick Bolasie, Tom Davies or Wayne Rooney. I substituted all three of those players last week. Is Wayne happy with his role at the club? It's the role he wants to play, we've said it many times. Our tactical change was for the benefit of the team on Saturday.
"It's a team game and you make a decision on the day to try and help the team to get a victory. We did that by [making] three substitutions and continued to press Liverpool for the last 20 minutes and created our best two chances.
"We were all very disappointed in the end that we didn't win it, so our substitutions had an effect because players like Yannick and Tom had done the job before that. Like every player as the game goes on, you get a little bit fatigued so you bring three fresh legs on and that had a positive effect."
Rooney has been used 33 times in all competition since returning to Everton last summer, with 24 of those being Premier League starts.
Daniel Lewis
