Poll: Is Wayne Rooney past it and should he be sold?

Is Rooney past it?

  • Total voters
    1,482
I think last season was possibly his worst at United but still think he will leave egg on a lot of faces next season if he starts as the main striker in a side set up to create him chances. When he gets on a run he's so busy in the final third that you always feel he will have 2 or 3 moments in every match.

The question is whether the best setup for United is also the best setup for Rooney.
 
Ya that's pretty poor but his overall goals record away from old Trafford besides anfield and Goodison is excellent.
 
Imo he is pretty much done physically. Sth he talked about a lot himself. Takes away most from his game sadly. I don't want him sold but I definitely don't want him being a regular and undroppable starter for us.
 
Godfather said:
Imo he is pretty much done physically. Sth he talked about a lot himself. Takes away most from his game sadly. I don't want him sold but I definitely don't want him being a regular and undroppable starter for us.
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He's on £250k a week. That wage means he should be our superstar, our best player. Unless he's prepared to take a huge pay cut he probably needs to be sold.
 
Rooney always comes good. He's adjusting to the striker role again and it will take him time to find his shooting range up there again....Every year he get's a thread saying he should be sold and then suddenly he goes on a 6 game scoring run and everyone says he's world class again....Rooney will score many goals this season once he adapts again to the striker role
 
I voted sell him a few months ago and still feel that's the best option.

People need to realise that he has played a career worth for football, so its natural he is going to finish sooner.

It wouldn't be as bad if he wasn't captain and had a guaranteed starting place, but having him as our main striker is really going to limit or chances this season.

Put as simply as possible: he isn't good anymore.
 
Andy_Cole said:
He's on £250k a week. That wage means he should be our superstar, our best player. Unless he's prepared to take a huge pay cut he probably needs to be sold.
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No one ever would take him with that wage anyway. Apart from some MLS or Chinese team probably.
 
I am not sure what is the reason behind it but he has become a snake with no poison. He is not quick, he is not creative, he is not powerful where it matters, just not scary anymore and for a while now.
 
Ringo 07 said:
Rooney always comes good. He's adjusting to the striker role again and it will take him time to find his shooting range up there again....Every year he get's a thread saying he should be sold and then suddenly he goes on a 6 game scoring run and everyone says he's world class again....Rooney will score many goals this season once he adapts again to the striker role
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I get frustrated with responses like this. Look at the stats the last 5 years, there not to great and certainly don't justify his cost and role at the club.

If we had Charlie Austin up front I honestly believe he would score as many goals if not more than Rooney this season.

The question isn't 'can he do a job'. It is are there a significant number of better option out there?

I personally would say yes, we could do a lot better.

P.S. I'm not saying Charlie Austin is the answer or a better player.
 
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I said earlier that I want him sold but that's because I wrongly presumed we wouldn't sell our best other striker and not sign anybody whatsoever. At this stage he can't be sold. We wouldn't have anybody at all. Who would pay his wages anyway?
 
Ringo 07 said:
Rooney always comes good. He's adjusting to the striker role again and it will take him time to find his shooting range up there again....Every year he get's a thread saying he should be sold and then suddenly he goes on a 6 game scoring run and everyone says he's world class again....Rooney will score many goals this season once he adapts again to the striker role
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I don't think that's true, he doesn't always come good. He may have a 6 game scoring run, but that'll be it. It is simply not feasible for any trophy hunting team to have Rooney as their main and only striker. It won't work. We won't be able to keep getting determined, relatively defensive 1-0 wins. We need goals.
 
Looked so poor last night, not only his goal threat but it was the fact that his touch was totally off and at one point he passed the ball under no pressure straight to the opposition just because he wasnt concentrating on what was going on. It was just very poor and he looked like a man without hunger which is unusual for him he does not seem to have the fire he had a few years ago.
 
He was poor in Fergie's final season, not much better for Moyes, confused last season, and started badly this season. A pretty strong trend to reverse. Watching him last night he didn't even look part of the furniture. Why he wasn't subbed when it had become so obvious seems to me to be the biggest question. He seemed to hinder our attack at times. Does he stay on the pitch whatever his performance? Why?
 
Player writing him off right now may just want to go out and purchase a special kind of pie...

Yes OK he was awful yesterday, his touch was poor, his awareness was poor and he ultimately ended most of our attacks. But this is Wayne Rooney we are talking about. This is a guy who's career has been based on patchy form.

OK he's 29 now? But he's hardly 33/34 and in the twilight of his career. He's just short of confidence. Based on how his career has gone he will score either a penalty or really scrappy goal and suddenly it'll come back to him.

He does look like he's struggling in this new formation though and I've always felt that he is best with a strike partner... But he's adapted to so many different positions over his career you've got to believe he'll do it again.
 
Ringo 07 said:
Rooney always comes good. He's adjusting to the striker role again and it will take him time to find his shooting range up there again....Every year he get's a thread saying he should be sold and then suddenly he goes on a 6 game scoring run and everyone says he's world class again....Rooney will score many goals this season once he adapts again to the striker role
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It wasn't his shooting range that was the issue last night though. His touch was appalling, his passing abysmal and he looked like he was running in treacle.
A natural striker (which he is) shouldn't need to adjust to playing up front, he was head and shoulders the worst player on the pitch last night. If it was anyone but Wayne Rooney he'd have been dragged off at half time.
 
Doesn't need to be sold, but he needs to accept a role this season where he is not a guaranteed starter. That is of course if we can bring in a new 9, not many available.
He seems to be the one thing atm which I see seriously hindering a title shot. Pedro will help though mind you, as well as being able to play out wide, he can also play through the middle.

EDIT: He does deserve a run of games, however he has 2/3 games before the window closes, I think if he keeps performing like this, we'll sign a striker tbh.
 
I wouldn't sell him, we'd get very little for him and we need to increase rather than reduce our options up front. He needs genuine competition to be brought in though and in the meantime I'd certainly be giving Hernandez/Wilson a bit of a go.
 
Only gonna see whether he's up for it when someone is pushing to start in front of him....
 
Simple isn't it really - he is no longer as good as Suarez, Costa, Ronaldo, Benzema, Ibrahimovic, Aguero or Thomas Muller/Lewandowski therefore he is no longer good enough to lead the line for Manchester Utd if we want to consider ourselves as being in that same bracket as the likes of Barcelona, Real, PSG, Bayern etc....
 
lilcurt said:
I get frustrated with responses like this. Look at the stats the last 5 years, there not to great and certainly don't justify his cost and role at the club.

If we had Charlie Austin up front I honestly believe he would score as many goals if not more than Rooney this season.

The question isn't 'can he do a job'. It is are there a significant number of better option out there?

I personally would say yes, we could do a lot better.

P.S. I'm not saying Charlie Austin is the answer or a better player.
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I think that too.

Which is more of an indictment of Rooney than praise for Austin but yeah, I'm sure Austin can at least run about a bit. Rooney looked absolutely fecking knackered last night by half time.
 
GE said:
I wonder if Chelsea are still interested?
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Were they ever genuinely interested? I got the feeling Jose was trolling Moyes. I think it will be retirement or MLS for Rooney but I can't see him moving his wife and kids out to the US so he will probably see out his contract at United.
 
Rich_H_1989 said:
Player writing him off right now may just want to go out and purchase a special kind of pie...

Yes OK he was awful yesterday, his touch was poor, his awareness was poor and he ultimately ended most of our attacks. But this is Wayne Rooney we are talking about. This is a guy who's career has been based on patchy form.

OK he's 29 now? But he's hardly 33/34 and in the twilight of his career. He's just short of confidence. Based on how his career has gone he will score either a penalty or really scrappy goal and suddenly it'll come back to him.

He does look like he's struggling in this new formation though and I've always felt that he is best with a strike partner... But he's adapted to so many different positions over his career you've got to believe he'll do it again.
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He's always been 6-7 years ahead of his time as a player. We had the benefit of that in his youth, we're getting the detriment of it now. He was 18 going on 24, now he's 29 going on 35.
 
granted him a 5 & a half years of lucrative contract was one of the biggest mistakes of our signings in recent years. this is almost hopeless if there is any european clubs to take up his remaining 4 years contract. the only chance is if either one of galaxy or nyc in mls can pick him up to sell shirts for them
 
I think selling him is an even worse idea than before given that a) there's next to no time left in the transfer window and b) we can't find proper competition for him let alone a replacement.

We need reinforcements up front but selling Rooney really doesn't help us.
 
I voted no a long time ago, think in the newbie thread. I'm starting to lose patience with Rooney.

If he was on 100-150k a week that would buy him more time but to be on his wage he should be banging them in for fun, or at least getting close.

He needs to turn up pretty sharpish.
 
Good luck selling him with the wages he's on and the form he's been in for a while now.

Selling him without having a top striker lined up is daft anyways.
 
I was all for selling him when we had offers but we're stuck with him now.

Saying that he always takes 4 or 5 games to be able to do the basics again so let's see how he is after a couple more games.

We do need to be looking at another striker though.
 
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