Poland v England: Manchester United forward Wayne Rooney remains in the middle of Roy Hodgson's thoughts This contrasts sharply with the idea of Hodgson's predecessor Fabio Capello who was at times exasperated by Rooney's habit of dropping deep and worked hard to push him nearer to the opponents" goal. But Rooney is growing older, maturing and adapting. Rooney himself would also appear to agree about a role change. After the Newcastle win he took to the social network site Twitter. "Really enjoying my new midfield role, always involved," he tweeted, reiterating his thoughts from earlier this year when he mentioned in his latest autobiography that, having improved his passing and having lost a little of his pace, he might welcome the switch. He would also, certainly, welcome the captaincy once Gerrard, now 32, is either replaced or retired with Rooney revealing that while he gave up his shirt and even his shorts to San Marino players at Wembley he held on tightly to the armband - not even passing it to goalkeeper Joe Hart when he was substituted. "I think we are now seeing the best of Wayne Rooney," Hodgson said after Friday's victory in which Rooney, playing as a striker, scored twice to take his tally for England to 31, surpassing that of Alan Shearer, Nat Lofthouse and Tom Finney, and moving to fifth in the all-time list. In the not-too-distant future then Rooney could be adding to those goals from midfield with Hodgson declaring that he has already been considering using Walcott as a striker - where the Arsenal winger is desperate to play - and might have fielded him there during the San Marino game had he not got injured. "I was also thinking that Theo Walcott might be interesting to look at in that position," Hodgson said adding that he has Jermain Defoe, Andy Carroll and Welbeck also. Of Rooney, Hodgson added: "Maybe in the earlier games when he could play for me, for various reasons he wasn't at his best. I have got to hope now that he stays at his best, that he stays fit and healthy and he continues to do what he's doing for Manchester United at the moment because that means he will do it for us as well. There was also an admission from Hodgson. "All the time I've been with him, during the Euros, I don't think he was as sharp then and playing as he is now and I think he'd be the first to say that," the manager said. But in terms of his commitment, in terms of his desire, in terms of him wanting to do the job, he's every bit the same man today as he was then. I'm only prepared to judge him on that. I'm not naive, I do know what's happened in the past but I prefer personally not to think too much about that and prefer to judge him and judge our relationship since May rather than back over four or five years. A fresh start for Rooney then and, 10 games into Hodgson's reign, a fresh start for England, even if the new manager says he's not in the business of "appraising" how he has done so far. "I am satisfied," he nevertheless said of the 10 matches, none of which have ended in defeat apart from on penalties against Italy in the European Championship. When we were at the Euros we were against top teams and sometimes we had our backs against the walls. There was some excellent defending going on. Since then, against Italy in the friendly, and in the three matches so far in this group, I think we've actually played some quite good attacking football especially in terms of the quality of our passing and the quality of our movement. There's one thing for sure - we have a national team at the moment who can pass the ball and we've got a national team with players who have a lot of pace. And I think if you are looking at the top teams and you are looking ahead then I think it's quite important that we continue down that route because there's no doubt that when you look at those teams they can pass the ball and they have a lot of pacy players in their team. There were more name checks from Hodgson - revealing his thoughts on how the squad will evolve in the attempt to qualify for the World Cup in Brazil in 2014. There were mentions for more United players - Chris Smalling and Phil Jones - plus a pair of Arsenal full-backs in Kieran Gibbs and Carl Jenkinson. Hodgson praised Welbeck's "extremely good form" and also talked of how "encouraging" it was to see Liverpool midfielder Jonjo Shelvey make his international debut. It is known that he also rates two Spurs players in Steven Caulker and Kyle Naughton and Hodgson also mentioned the return Wilshere. "I'm encouraged when I go and watch games," he said. So I think at the moment I have quite a few reasons to look optimistically to the future.