Rooney: 'We're well-prepared for Estonia defending'

Wayne Rooney believes that Thursday's game against San Marino will have prepared England well for their next European Qualifier in Tallinn.

The Three Lions take on Estonia on Sunday night looking for the victory that will keep them at the summit of Group E.

In their last outing against a Sammarinese side who sat back and defended in numbers, England had the ball for more the three quarters of the game.

And Rooney, who scored in the last meeting with Estonia in 2007, reckons that the attacking practice will help them when they face a more "ambitious" side at the A Le Coq Arena.

"Estonia are a difficult team to play against, they are well-organised, they'll get bodies behind the ball and make it difficult for us to break them down," Rooney said when he spoke to TheFA.com at the team hotel.

"We experience that quite often now in international football and we'll be well-prepared for their style of play.

"Hopefully we can adapt to that and play our football."

Looking back on Thursday's 5-0 win over San Marino in which he scored his 42nd goal for England, Rooney said: "When there are that many bodies behind the ball there is not the space that you are usually have to get on the ball and try and get in the gaps.

"It's important that you try to get in behind teams, use the width well, and try to move them from side to side to create a bit of space and hurt them.

"I'm sure it'll be a similar game [against Estonia], they will sit back and try to frustrate us, although not as much as it was against San Marino. I think Estonia will be a little bit more ambitious when they get the ball."

He continued: "Most of the teams in this group are capable of beating each other, which seems to be happening, but thankfully we've got off to a good start with six points and we'll be looking to keep that run going.

"We know it will be a tough game, we believe in ourselves and if we play the way we want to with the flair and the pace we have in the team we'll do well.

"You always want to win the games and be top of the group, and we are at the moment. But this is a big game and after the results on Thursday night if we go into this one and get the three points we'll be in a great position going into the games next month."

The Manchester United striker is also homing in on Sir Bobby Charlton's England goalscoring record of 49 goals, and after tucking away a penalty in the first half to make it 2-0 against San Marino, he was also involved in the fifth goal.

Rooney slots home his 42nd England goal

His cross from the right took a big deflection off defender Alessandro Della Valle and sailed beyond the goalkeeper and into the net.

But, as much as he'd like to have claim it, he always knew it would go down as an own-goal.

"I tried to cross it to the back post and it's gone in. I was never trying to claim it, but it's always nice to score," he said.

"If I had tried to shoot and chip the goalkeeper it might have been different, but it was meant to be a cross. I always knew it was an own-goal."