Rooney’s best partnership

Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez was devastating! Ripped every single team apart.
 
Statistically Rooney's partnership with Tevez was pretty average even though they claimed to love playing together. They were too similar and didn't complement each other. I thought Saha was his best partner, shame it was short-lived.
 
Blood Mage said:
Statistically Rooney's partnership with Tevez was pretty average even though they claimed to love playing together. They were too similar and didn't complement each other. I thought Saha was his best partner, shame it was short-lived.
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Agree, that was some of the best football with Saha. Shame he did not last long
 
Blood Mage said:
Statistically Rooney's partnership with Tevez was pretty average even though they claimed to love playing together. They were too similar and didn't complement each other. I thought Saha was his best partner, shame it was short-lived.
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When we signed Tevez, a lot of people predicted that it wouldn't work as a partnership as they both liked to drop deep, however without their constant work rate and intelligent movement then Ronaldo wouldn't have gotten close to 42 goals in that one season.

'Statistically average' simply isn't true. In 07/08, Rooney got 18 goals & 14 assists and Tevez got 19 goals and 7 assists (with Ronaldo on penalties all season).
 
It has to be Saha for me. As good as Ruud was for us, I always felt like he was a bit of a hinderance after Beckham left. The front line just didn't click as well as it should've until the 2006 Carling Cup final in which Ruud got benched for Saha.

That final was an amazing performance by us and it felt like a preview to the following season. As soon as we hammered Fulham 5-1 on the opening day of that season, I just knew that the team got way better despite Ruud leaving and us only signing Carrick in the summer.

Saha was just a special player and he just made that front line with Rooney and Ronaldo click. It was a damn shame seeing him have a lot of injury issues
 
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Rooney can play well with almost anyone as he’s a total footballer.

I will instead go for the worst Rooney-partner duos.

1. Rooney-Berbatov (too different and polar opposites for my liking)
2. Rooney-Ibra (both too slow for my liking)
3. Rooney-Rashford (somehow they were just awkward and on different wavelengths)
 
Blood Mage said:
Statistically Rooney's partnership with Tevez was pretty average even though they claimed to love playing together. They were too similar and didn't complement each other. I thought Saha was his best partner, shame it was short-lived.
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I agree. I remember frequent frustration that Tevez was dropping into the 10 position that Rooney previously operated in, but Tevez didn't have the same quality or skill to create. Rooney was then too far forwards and at that point hadn't become a clinical finisher (he added that to his game later), or Rooney and Tevez would both drop too deep and there'd be nobody getting on the end of crosses or cut backs. The attack from that era gets deified but it was the rock solid defence and core that won us trophies. Think we broke a record for consecutive clean sheets, and there were plenty of 1-0s.

It sort of worked with Ronaldo having a free role and getting into the box at will, so it was a 4-6-0 of sorts (or 4-3-3-0). But it's telling that in big games Tevez was dropped, and Ronaldo played as a lone striker in the CL knockouts with Rooney LW.

When Ronaldo left I was quite glad Tevez also left as we really needed a proper centre forward, especially without Ronaldo who was a major threat in the air from his free role. Benzema moved to Madrid that summer and he would have been the perfect #9 to partner Rooney, and just let Rooney play in his best position as a second striker.
 
Ronaldo. There can be no argument surely? Three league titles in a row, only the third and currently last CL trophy in our history plus two league cups and a world club cup. Incredible.
 
Some revisionism going on here. The Rooney and Tevez partnership was decent but we were hardly tearing teams apart with them. Back then over here we are crying out from a proper #9 almost every week. That was also the period everyone here were wanking themselves silly over the prospect of young Benzema joining the club.
 
I’d go with Saha. He was such a good, unselfish team player and must have been every striker’s dream partner. We played some sublime football with those two leading.
 
I thought Berba and Rooney would have been superb as both had everything but it just didn't materialise.
As Utd partnerships go I would say Yorke and Cole takes some beating.
 
thepolice123 said:
Some revisionism going on here. The Rooney and Tevez partnership was decent but we were hardly tearing teams apart with them. Back then over here we are crying out from a proper #9 almost every week. That was also the period everyone here were wanking themselves silly over the prospect of young Benzema joining the club.
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Eh? We absolutely were tearing teams apart. In the 07/08 season we started slow, not winning any of our first 3 games and I think Rooney was injured early on as well. Then we had a slew of 1-0 wins until we hammered Wigan 4-0 with all of Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez scoring, and after that we were consistently battering teams.
 
UnofficialDevil said:
I always looked forward to Rooney Tevez

Rooney:
"I just loved our connection. The two of us up front, we complimented each other really well.

"Normally if I played with Louis Saha, Ruud van Nistelrooy or Robin van Persie – these strikers were always the No9 and I'd play as a No10.

"With Tevez we could rotate, I'd be the No9, he'd take the No9 spot and I'd be No10. When we lost the ball we'd be like two bulls trying to get it back.

"As a strike partner, he was the one I enjoyed playing with the most."
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I reckon he'd have had an amazing partnership with Kane if their peaks overlapped for a few years.
 
For his all round play must be between 2003-2007,

For pure number 9 and Rooney the goal scorer it’s Valencia.

Also his link up with RVP I think is a bit underrated.
 
Saha, though he couldn't stay fit long enough to make the partnership legendary.

Saha was a fantastic player though, very underrated.
 
I think some underrate the Rooney/Tevez partnership.

I have a lot of games from the 07-08 & 08-09 seasons. Eventually, when I get a better laptop/pc, I plan on making some vs videos of Ronaldo, Rooney and Tevez playing together in individual matches. With a bit of Berbatov thrown in the following season.

This might be a hot take but I also thought Tevez linked up better with Berbatov than Rooney did, which is funny because it had to be one of them with Rooney when Rooney/Tevez and Tevez/Berbatov were better than Rooney/Berbatov.
 
Gavinb33 said:
Tevez, I'll never understand why Fergie thought he needed Berbatov and never tried to get Tevez as an United player properly and not on loan unless he didn't want to deal with Joorabchian
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Berbatov was a very un-Fergie like signing. He wasn't the typical profile we'd go for as he had a languid style and was 27 at the time. I think he always admired the way Bergkamp played and thought he could make it work with Berbatov. The fact that he didn't even make the bench for the 2011 Champions League final was an indicator that the signing wasn't a huge success. I still loved him though. He oozed quality.
 
Gavinb33 said:
Tevez, I'll never understand why Fergie thought he needed Berbatov and never tried to get Tevez as an United player properly and not on loan unless he didn't want to deal with Joorabchian
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Berbatov won us the league when Ronaldo and Teves werent there anymore though. But I guess Fergie has a history of buying strikers as he was one himself. Wish I can say the same thing now. If one stops scoring goal you just play another... good old days. I never even thought Fergie would sign Chicarito because he was a one dimensional poacher and yet Fergie did and Chica ended up as a success.
 
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I think the Van Nistelrooy partnership is underrated. I mean the very first game they played together was amazing but it was the first half of the following season that they were really good.

05/06 was the last version of the true Rooney as once he had his metatarsal injury his game changed. In the first half of that season we were pretty average but Ruud and Rooney were carrying us with some really great play.

We got better as a team once SAF dropped Ruud and moved Giggs and O’Shea to midfield and let our attack run through Rooney, Ronaldo and Saha. The second half of that season was the building block for the fantastic 2006/07 season where we got away from catering our play heavily to our No.9 scoring the goals.
 
Tevez just automatically pops in my head as the answer. I remember the debate about them being too similar but it didn't really matter when what they were similar at were things that were very effective.

Wouldn't disagree with Saha as a fair shout but don't think it was as much that him and Rooney were a great partnership, as that Saha's threat and movement just suited all of our other forwards. Ronaldo and Rooney in particular were too good to play secondary support roles to Ruud by that point.
 
The reason Tevez ended up leaving United was because he and Rooney were too similar and got in each other's way. They both linked up better with other players. So their partnership is a myth, they never really had a partnership otherwise we wouldn't have bought Berbatov. They were both fantastic shadow strikers but Rooney had the better all-round game so we made the right choice in letting Tevez go.
 
1.Rooney + Ruud
2.Rooney + Giggs
3.Rooney + Ronaldo
5. Rooney + Valencia
 
Blood Mage said:
The reason Tevez ended up leaving United was because he and Rooney were too similar and got in each other's way. They both linked up better with other players. So their partnership is a myth, they never really had a partnership otherwise we wouldn't have bought Berbatov. They were both fantastic shadow strikers but Rooney had the better all-round game so we made the right choice in letting Tevez go.
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That's not what happened... Tevez left because he felt undermined (by Berbatov's arrival, as he would be the first in line to be dropped) and undervalued (because the club had yet to make him a permanent contract offer due to the dodginess of his agent). The football was great between the forwards in the first season, and got bottle-necked in the 2nd because Berbatov didn't fit, and then Tevez mentally checked out a bit, which saw his numbers reduce and his performances plummet.

Tevez wanted nothing more than to stay and be a permanent fixture in the 1st xi.
 
Never understand why people say Ronaldo.

Ronaldo was a winger and we played 442.

He was very good with RvP.
 
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