At United, Rooney has got an excellent set of passers including Scholes, Carrick, Valencia, Nani and others who create chances and get him in good positions to score. In that sense, he is a good finisher and when on form can be deadly. However, he does not have enough technique to be as creative as a Pirlo or a Scholes and he cannot dribble and beat his man anymore.
In a team like England where he needs to constantly drop deep and is tempted to actually create something as opposed to United where he can rely on one of the players mentioned above, his weaknesses are more apparent and he seems to be an ordinary player.
When we get the ball in our 1/3.
We pass the ball around with our defenders and
a) Have a full back and winger link up, and then get the ball upfield, generally resulting in a cross
b) Get the ball to Carrick / Scholes, who then play a brilliant long ball to either Rooney or either of the 2 wingers. If Rooney gets the ball, he generally gets the ball to a winger with a long crossfield pass (generally Valencia last season), who then crosses it in. Rinse repeat, till someone heads/foots it in.
The scorer is also generally Rooney.
It's the reason why Rooney had so few assists last season, despite playing in the hole; he mainly received a pass from our DLP's, and then gave it to Valencia/other winger, and then scored from the cross (Noone actually scored too many goals aside from him).
Few can be as creative as Pirlo etc. Rooney's lack of through balls hurts him in the creative sense; he's generally a top passer when picking out the winger (like Scholes, but less consistent), especially compared to other forwards.
Furthermore, Rooney's finishing is incredibly clinical. He generally doesn't beat his man, but he can escape his man when he does his 'first touch away from the opposition' in midfield etc. He's also making the defence shit their pants when he runs at them; they back off so fast so that when he picks out our pacey wingers, they aren't ahead of the defensive line.
He's so useful to us, yet all that seems to be undone by 2 below-par performances at Euro 2012, where he admittedly was not match fit, and had a team giving him scraps.
Do you think RvP had a great tournament? He missed like 5 or more 1v1's apparently? Do you not think strikers are inconsistent? Because Danny Welbeck is hellishly inconsistent, whereas Rooney had 35 goals and they were spread around quite a bit. People's complaints of him were 'he scores when he's playing badly.' Well, uh, we judge other strikers chiefly by their scoring record; i doubt many on the caf follow Aguero, RvP, Benzema, Rooney and Ibra at the same time. When rooney plays bad, he still ends up scoring. He's also a lot better at passing when this happens than you give him credit for.
It's just his reputation is to be picking out the man every time; it just doesn't happen if you're a forward. The amount of times Welbeck misplaced a pass or got caught on a dribble was multitudes higher; yet he's forgiven for being young or something. I'm sorry, but it's very hard playing in the final 1/3; if rooney drops into midfield he'll have a lot more time and space and errors will reduce significantly.
It astounds me that people think there are several other strikers better than him; the fact is Rooney's either scoring or distributing incredibly well. And I don't know many strikers who distribute better than him, personally. Maybe Messi. Ibra's rather good at that too. But the others? Not a spot on him.
As a complete player, rooney is very good at a lot of things. Other strikers are less complete. We judge him on so many criteria that of course he's going to be inconsistent one way or the other. Maddening. We have a top quality striker for whom the sky is the limit, yet you don't want to appreciate it.
I wonder what you're going to say in 3-4 years time, when, say, Welbeck and Chicharito are leading the line. They are very good strikers in themselves, but you see the difference in quality between players, and Rooney, again, is one of the few players whose skill just blows me away, and feel I'm witnessing a special special player.
