Agreed.
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Agreed.
He's been our best performing striker this year, but that is not down to his performances which have been far from good, it's because Falcao and Rooney(when he played as a striker) were shit.
Great post, the best I have ever received.
Im glad that you took it as banter. TBF I am crap on that and that often makes me enemies.
On a serious note, I acknowledge that RVP hasn't had the best of seasons. However he's been much better than Falcao. Having said that, if I was LVG I'll put them both on the bench and play Rooney instead.
Rooney's been better.
He's been better overall, but no way he was better when he played as a striker.
He has, but it hasn't been significant in any way, this is one of those arguments that could go either way - our whole strike force has been abysmal.
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He has.
It's a bit of a pointless discussion really. RVP got injured against Swansea, a week later Wazza scored two against Sunderland. But Falcao started that game as the #9. He got subbed off, Rooney then moved to the striker's position, but his first goal was a penalty (Falcao was pulled down) so that goal wasn't down to him playing as a striker. Then Wes Brown got sent off. Sunderland were desperate, and in the 84th minute Rooney scored his second goal, at home against a piss poor side, 11 vs. 10 when they were desperately pushing for an equalizer and there was all the space in the world. This was the 28th of Februari.
Ever since then, Rooney has scored 3 goals in 11 matches. One directly after he was moved into midfield against Aston Villa, so he was not playing as a striker anymore. Leaving the grand total of two goals when playing as a striker since Februari 28th, one nice header against Arsenal in a game we lost. And one nice goal against Tottenham in a game we won.
I love RVP to death, but if there's one man I wouldn't mind outperforming him, then it's Wazza who I also adore. So I don't think there's any bias talking when I say Rooney has definitely not been a better #9 than Van Persie over the last months.
For me it's been the same story for a whole season, we simply don't play well enough and don't have the consistent quality as a team to make it work for our forwards. We have Wazza who, contrary to what some people on here seem to believe, is one of the best players in the world and he's in his absolute physical prime. Yet we still couldn't set him up for a goal in the two best matches we played, completely domintating against City & Liverpool. That sums up our problems for me.
As for RVP, of course I hope he'll score tomorrow, but it'll be very difficult. The moment Carrick is out we struggle, and Arsenal have been in very good form recently and they already beat us this season at Old Trafford. I don't think Van Persie is really past it though, I've seen him playing for Holland last year when he was just back from that heavy meniscus injury. He wasn't fit at all and had zero match rhythm, yet he still managed to score some of best goals in his career. For me he has to just way too much class to be past it already, he's no 34 yet. But we'll see.
Ever since then, Rooney has scored 3 goals in 11 matches. One directly after he was moved into midfield against Aston Villa, so he was not playing as a striker anymore. Leaving the grand total of two goals when playing as a striker since Februari 28th, one nice header against Arsenal in a game we lost. And one nice goal against Tottenham in a game we won.
I love RVP to death, but if there's one man I wouldn't mind outperforming him, then it's Wazza who I also adore. So I don't think there's any bias talking when I say Rooney has definitely not been a better #9 than Van Persie over the last months.
For me it's been the same story for a whole season, we simply don't play well enough and don't have the consistent quality as a team to make it work for our forwards. We have Wazza who, contrary to what some people on here seem to believe, is one of the best players in the world and he's in his absolute physical prime. Yet we still couldn't set him up for a goal in the two best matches we played, completely domintating against City & Liverpool. That sums up our problems for me.
As for RVP, of course I hope he'll score tomorrow, but it'll be very difficult. The moment Carrick is out we struggle, and Arsenal have been in very good form recently and they already beat us this season at Old Trafford. I don't think Van Persie is really past it though, I've seen him playing for Holland last year when he was just back from that heavy meniscus injury. He wasn't fit at all and had zero match rhythm, yet he still managed to score some of best goals in his career. For me he has to just way too much class to be past it already, he's no 34 yet. But we'll see.
So apparently Falcao starting again tomorrow (yay). RVP injured again?
Didn't LVG recently say that he always starts players against their former clubs?
I vaguely remember Van Gaal declaring both Di Maria and Van Persie fit to play at yesterday's presser. So if he's fit and doesn't start either the writing really is on the wall, or Van Gaal wants to balance everything out between the players because RVP has still gotten a huge amount of matches despite being injured a lot.
I believe something similar happened with Mata around Februari, during he played almost everything the first half of the season and Van Gaal said he wasn't dissapointed in him, but he felt others were doing well in training and deserved a chance too, and with his talk about honesty and all he benched Mata for quite some time before starting him again.
If it's true that Falcao is starting he's either injured or he starts in midfield because Rojo couldn't make it.
Wow.
Yeah shocking right...
No one seems to be spouting all that nonsense about Van Persie being Van Gaals "love child" anymore.
Yes, shocking. Genuinely.
Do you ever watch other teams? Most people consider Real, Bayern and Barca the best three teams in the world at the moment.
Why wouldn't Rooney start ahead of Benzema, who hasn't scored 20 goals in La Liga for three seasons running?
Lewandowski is on 16 goals in the Bundesliga with Bayern doing teams for fun, Rooney is on 12 goals in the Premier League while playing in midfield for half a season in a team that has struggled a lot. Pretty sure he would start ahead of Lewa.
Suarez is only 14 months younger than Wayne, has never played in midfield, played in a very inferior Dutch league. Still Rooney has scored as much goals in his club career as he did. He's on great form, but I have little doubt Rooney couldn't bang in the same amount Suarez has, playing with the likes of Neymar, Messi, Iniesta.
Mourinho was all over him last summer, maybe because he wanted a mediocre player to fill his squad? Or will he go down in the history as that 'decent' player who became England's and Manchester United's all time top scorer? I don't think so.
And then there's Rooney not as a striker, where he is an even better player in my opinion. I remember him scoring in a Champions League final with Chicha as the #9, scored that goal against City with Berba on the pitch, scored a brace against City the last time we won the league playing behind RVP. Not to forget scoring 27 league goals or so playing mostly as a second striker or what SAF reffered to as a '#10'. He'd be more than fine, and I personally think he's even better there than as a true #9. At Chelsea Mourinho would probably play him in the Oscar role I think, not in Diego Costa's spot unless he was injured.
He's a truly unique player, definitely one of the best in the world in my book.
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There was barely anything between peak van Persie and peak Rooney. van Persie would score more goals out of nothing, but he'd also miss more sitters. There record at number-nine was similar too.
plus one
Great post.
Agree 100%
Good post. People don't seem to appreciate how good Wayne Rooney is sometimes.
Good post, but you're going on and om about the Rooney of the past, and only talk about the Rooney as of now in 1 paragraph, the main point is, that Rooney has declined and isnt as good as he was before. He's living off his reputation, because his last world class season was in 2011'2012. He's scored 4 goals in 13 games as a striker, how does that result in ; if he'd play as a striker all season, he'd scored 25+ (some of the posts in the Rooney thread)? It is based on absolutely nothing. Rooney has been a great player for us in the past, but he hasnt been more than a good player for the past 3 seasons.
Have to agree with that. I thought Rooney's best season for us was as a number 9 as well.
Absolutely agree, top post.
Some of his performances have been very poor this season.
Also I have no idea why you are comparing Rooney to Suarez. Suarez right now and last season is light years ahead of Rooney in pretty much every aspect.
Fair enough, though as you can see I also posted about Rooney's form as a striker in a post above the one you've reacted to. I just really think it's been difficult for our strikers. And they've scored some goals at least, I believe a player like Di Maria hasn't scored a goal in six months. And looking at the whole team, there have been way too many quality players under performing. I just can't see them all coincidentally being permanently past it at the same time.
Then I look at a team like Juve for example, I would say it's not so much Tevez and Morata being much better strikers than Rooney, Van Persie or even Falcao. I look at their team, and like United they have a great goalkeeper. A better left back with Evra, a much more solid central defense with Bonucci and Chiellini (we have talent there but not experience and consistency), a better right back with Lichtsteiner. Then looking at their midfield the difference with United is even bigger, doesn't get much better than Pirlo, Pogba, Vidal, Marchisio. Way more experience and leadership in their squad too. For me that's the reason Tevez and Morata were able to excell and be decisive and Juve went through in the Madrid ties, much more than their strikers being of superior quality to for example our strikers.
Or even more simply put, I think Juventus probably could've had the same results with this season's Rooney and this season's Van Persie up front instead of Tevez and Morata. Because having a good team behind you is vital for all forwards in the world, except maybe Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar.
There is so much wrong with that Rooney post that it's hard to get myself down to post a proper reply
You do have a point, but I dont agree completely. Tevez can force things out of himself, he still has the hunger to score, take defenders on, dribble, make runs, shoot from distance and frequently produces moments of brilliance, that's quite individual, Rooney and RvP are overly reloant of service and fail to produce individually. They'd be better at Juventus than here, but their style of play and energy they have, isnt good enough for the highest level anymore. It isnt as if Austin, or Benteke gets that much more service at their respective clubs for example, but they set themselves up to score, by their positioning, dynamism, strength, those are the things Rooney and Rvp have really regressed in, not to talk about Falcao.
I agree with the general point but some of the arguments here are just silly.
To be honest I can't say I noticed Rooney's lack of energy this season. And RVP's last two games for us, against Swansea and WBA (disregarding the 5 minute Everton sub) I thought he looked like our most dangerous attacking player, but we lost those games so then there aren't many positives. Been wondering about Austin and Benteke performing better myself. One big reason that deserves to be mentioned is that some teams just do not want to play at all against us. Against WBA for example, they had no problems with having 8(!) players in their own box during big parts of the match, it gets very difficult then.
Well at least that's more interesting than waking up to all those 100% agree posts, started feeling like Captain Obvious for trying to point out Rooney is still a very good player.
Any news on RVP by the way, is he still definitely not starting? Really not sure what to make of that.
Man Utd 1:1 Arsenal
What a shite cameo. Zero fecks given. I thought he would have something to play for, but looks like he couldn't be arsed.
Goodbye.
Out the door hopefully.
That was pretty dreadful.
At least Falcao adds movement to the forward line, Van Persie ads nothing except boredom and offsides.
Its time to go Van Persie.
Its time to go Van Persie.
Great post!
Offload him and Falcao asap.
Thanks for the 20th league title, RvP.
Thanks for the 20th league title, RvP.
How many times did we actually pass the ball to him?
Walking about. Prick.
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