I think that Nani is the better player overall, but I think Rooney is often pl
What I don't think he is 'great' at, is his touch, his short passing, his creativity and his dribbling.
His dribbling has certainly fallen off over the years.
With the others, it's more complicated. When he's on form, his touch is absolutely brilliant. What's unusual about him is that for an absolutely top class player his touch can look very heavy when he's off form.
Pace Pogue's point below, which I very much agree with overall, I think other world greats rarely look so ropey bringing the ball down. Part of it, I've always thought, is that he tries to do so much with the ball - often he will bring it down and shift it away from his man in one move. Not a lot of players even try that. Fair enough that Messi and Iniesta do, and they don't feck it up as often... I'm not saying his touch is as good as theirs. But when he's on song it's sublime.
I also think he's highly creative, it's just that he doesn't often split the defence from the front in one pass. Similar to Paul Scholes in that respect. Both are superb at pulling the defence out of shape with clever, unexpected, accurate passes, but they only split the defence that way once in a while.
Actually, I think he's probably the only world class player you watch every single game he plays. And the only world class player whose under-par performances cause you so much stress and anxiety they end up burned into your memory.
When, for example, Drogba goes through a dip in form you don't see every poor performance and you don't feel so frustrated watching them it colours your perception of his next decent (albeit not outstanding) display to an extent where you think he's been shit again. A good example being how many people decided Rooney was shite against Bolton because they were still pissed off about the Newcastle game. He actually played ok in that game. Any Chelsea fan watching that game would have thought Rooney was running the show for us, as he almost always does, week in, week out.
Excellent point
I hear this a lot and I'm not sure I agree.
In fact, I'm convinced the memories people have of Rooney in his early United career as an all-consuming, explosive force of nature are massively biased by the excitement and hype around him at the time, as well as the way we always remember the good/exciting - and filter out the bad/boring - over time.
He has definitely grown as a player. I think it's undeniable that he's also lost something. Two things in fact - a yard of pace, and his long-range shooting.
The pace is surely the reason he doesn't dribble the ball much. He used to be able to barrel through two or three opponents, and he just doesn't anymore. As you say he's developed in other ways, but it is a real shame, because the ability to do that is rare and the space it opens up is fantastic.
The shooting I think is partly because he's become much more of a percentage player, so rarely tries it, or aims to place it. The odd thing is that when he does try it he rarely hits it right. Very strange to lose a technique he clearly had.
If there's one thing stopping him from becoming the all-time great he had the potential to be, I'd say it was the pace. In fact he's done very well to accommodate the change as well as he has. Not that he's slow, at all. But he used to be very quick.
I found this to be a very bizarre paragraph to say the least.
"sacrificed himself for this team more than any other player in a generation", what on Earth are you on about.
I think he means he played out of position for two or three seasons without complaint.
