Wayne Rooney | 2012-14 Performances

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So you want a Carrick and Rooney central midfielder partnership against Real Madrid? I think you might've made your argument even worse than it originally was by expanding on that ridiculous idea.

The absolute only area of debate in that starting lineup is whether to go with RvP or Rooney.
 
Not starting Rooney v Real was ill-conceived and the evidence -- scoring only score once, from an own goal -- is conclusive that it was a colossal mistake
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This in particular, was especially stupid.
 
MrMojo said:
Before the game, in his ITV interview, SAF said they felt Wayne needed more games and that was the reason he was dropped, alongside the tactical reasons. It's interesting how there's no mention of that today in the presser and how on here it's been forgotten because we really want to believe the tactic argument.

He needs more games and we're in March! I still, despite what's been said today, wouldn't be surprised if he left.
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A couple of journalist have picked up on this, Fergie said Rooney needed more game time but a couple of hours later Phelan came out and said all the players were 100% fit.
 
Ruud10 said:
Blame the ref for sending us down to 10 men, but where was our offensive threat before the sending off? Nowhere. We got a fluky own goal off great hustle by Nani, but we were hardly carving up Real
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It was a tactical roll of the dice, which unfortunately came up snake eyes.
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Just bullshit. Take a look at the timeline here. We were playing it just right, givne the opposition and the situation, up until the red card.

If I've got a gripe, it's the way we failed to get our shit together for 10 minutes after the red, but in terms of the initial team selection Fergie rolled two sixes.
 
I agree. Our only tactical failure that I am aggrieved about us the fact we didn't look prepared for a player getting sent off which was always a distinct possibility.
 
Sir A1ex said:
If I've got a gripe, it's the way we failed to get our shit together for 10 minutes after the red, but in terms of the initial team selection Fergie rolled two sixes.
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I tend to think that was more to do with how it happened than that we didnt have plans.

Because it was such a shock decision I think the guys lost their heads a bit , rather than a lack of planning.

Now, I can understand people thinking they should be more professional than that, but I can also see how much of a mindfeck that 2 minutes must have been.
 
MrMojo said:
Before the game, in his ITV interview, SAF said they felt Wayne needed more games and that was the reason he was dropped, alongside the tactical reasons. It's interesting how there's no mention of that today in the presser and how on here it's been forgotten because we really want to believe the tactic argument.

He needs more games and we're in March! I still, despite what's been said today, wouldn't be surprised if he left.
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Well he's coming back from the sinus infection he picked up so yes he'll need some games.
 
Nogbadthebad said:
I tend to think that was more to do with how it happened than that we didnt have plans.

Because it was such a shock decision I think the guys lost their heads a bit , rather than a lack of planning.

Now, I can understand people thinking they should be more professional than that, but I can also see how much of a mindfeck that 2 minutes must have been.
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Agree with your post - particularly the bolded bit.

I remember seeing firstly SAF encouraging the crowd...then Giggs doing the same.

At the time I loved it - and thought 'wow - even in his 1,000th game, he still senses the moment and is wanting to increase the atmosphere (which was already amazing).

With hindsight, what we should have done was try and take a breath and calm down (without wanting to sound scouser-like).

This is easy to say now - and at the time I was as caught up in it as anyone else watching...but I think we contributed to our own downfall and let the emotion and sense of injustice get the better of us.

Not trying to criticise the performance in anyway - was amazing proud of the team after the game...but just my observation with the luxury of hindsight!
 
Ruud10,

Judging by your long winded post,You wanted us to play Rooney, Giggs, Nani, Welbeck and RVP?

How would you have fit them?
 
So much wrong with this post but here goes:

Ruud10 said:
We lost the fukking game. Blame the ref for sending us down to 10 men, but where was our offensive threat before the sending off? Nowhere.
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We were playing very well and were on top. Where was Real's threat? Now THAT really was nowhere, largely due to the guy who played in Rooney's place - Welbeck.

Ruud10 said:
but is Cleverley now a more dominating offensive -- and defensive -- presence than Rooney? Hardly.
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Is a better central midfielder than Rooney? Yes. Which is what matters given that is, you know, the position he plays in.

Ruud10 said:
The argument for dropping Rooney, presumably, is that he was shit against Real at the Bernabeau, so it stands to reason he'd be shit at Old Trafford. So, Rooney is now shit against great Spanish sides?
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Actually the argument is more than Welbeck is better than him in terms of closing down space and shackling an opponent, an argument made by Sir Alex nonetheless. So going by his logic, Rooney would have to play out wide, and he isn't a very good wide player.


Ruud10 said:
#1. Wayne Rooney, if not our best player (let's assume RvP for the sake of humor) is certainly no worse than our second best player.

#2. Wayne Rooney put in a fantastic performance over the weekend, so "form" cannot be used against him.

#3. RvP was equally "poor", if that's how we wish to put it, as Rooney was at the Bernabeau. And RvP has been out of form in recent weeks, at least by his standards. But no sane man would have proposed dropping RvP.
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All this is irrelevant because you don't seem to have grasped why Rooney was left out. It's not because he's not our second best player, it's because Welbeck was more suitable than him for the way we had to set up to beat Madrid. And it was worked perfectly.





Ruud10 said:
We got the job done at the Bernabeau. No one expected us to win the game there and many of us would have been satisfied enough with a 1-2 loss. The mission was accomplished. You don't dramatically bust up XI's that accomplish their mission. A tweak here and there (for example, Vidic over Evans) but you don't gut the side of their second best, and arguably best, player.
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What a stupid argument. We set up a different way at the Bernabeu to how we did at OT. The game plan was different. In fact, even in that game Welbeck played centrally so he was ahead of Rooney for that position even for that game. And Rooney was poor in that game and never does all that well out wide, so I'm not sure what you're argument is.

Ruud10 said:
#6. RvP and Rooney have developed a fantastic "understanding", as you Brits like to put it. We needed to score two goals, probably three, to have a chance of going through (because of the perverse effect of the away goals rule in the second leg if you're at home) and there was no way we were going to score 2, let alone, 3 goals with Rooney rotting on the bench.
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Er, we scored one in about an hour so there was no way we were going to get one more goal? Doesn't make much sense does it? We were doing excellently without Rooney and the concensus was that we should have been up by more than a goal which shows that things were going pretty well and we had goals in us.



Basically from what I gather you've decided to ignore the reasons as to why we dropped Rooney and just gone for the "HE'S OUR SECOND BEST, IF NOT BEST PLAYER SO HE SHOULD PLAY" argument.

I've been critical of Fergie's tactics in the past, but it's obvious from that first hour that he clearly got it (at least up til then) absolutely spot on. Well done Fergie.
 
Any ideas on how we use Kagawa, Rooney and RvP together for the remainder of the season?

They all played against Norwich and I couldn't work out their individual positions. They all seemed to interchange every attack.

Now that Kagawa seems to be settling in more and showing his class, I think the trio could be deadly. Hope we see them all together again on Sunday.
 
Ruud10 is delluded, he's always been. But now I have come to think that he most probably is a WUM
 
On the theory that SAF/MUFC have put "word" out there that they want to sell Rooney and want the media to circulate that information...

The theory loses most of its credence when you consider we're at the most vital point in the season and there's no way Ferguson would wilfully bring controversy like this on to the team, you would have thought.
 
Ruud10 said:
Please explain your "reply", amolbhatia100.


Fergie got the back line right (Vidic over Evans), he got the decision to go with Nani right, he even got the decision to go with Giggs right, but he did not get the decision to go with Cleverley over Rooney right. Give him credit for the massive bet at the roulette table, but it didn't work. Flog the Turkish cnut for his role, but let it not obscure the fact we weren't breaking down the Real back line in a sustained manner until late in the game when, by coincidence, Rooney came on. We defended brilliantly and held Real scoreless until just after the red card. But when you look back does anyone really believe we could have held Real scoreless for 90 minutes?
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I don't understand why you suddenly think we should've played Rooney in CM for about the 4th time in his career in a game like this. You've had a mare here. Go and sleep it off.
 
Ruud10 said Tim Howard is one of the league's "elite" keepers, comes across to me as someone who's only been watching football a short time, tbf.
 
Gazza said:
On the theory that SAF/MUFC have put "word" out there that they want to sell Rooney and want the media to circulate that information...

The theory loses most of its credence when you consider we're at the most vital point in the season and there's no way Ferguson would wilfully bring controversy like this on to the team, you would have thought.
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I don't think anyone supposes SAF is responsible for leaking stories to the press. That would be very strange. Journalists usually have more lowly sources at the club for these kinds of leaks.
 
To be fair he probably thinks Giggs should have dropped back with Carrick and Rooney play in the AM role.
 
Rooney and Carrick in midfield or Carrick and Giggs in midfield, against Real Madrid, is just as absurd, really.
 
Adebesi said:
I don't think anyone supposes SAF is responsible for leaking stories to the press. That would be very strange. Journalists usually have more lowly sources at the club for these kinds of leaks.
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No, I'm quite aware of that. Most journalists are suggesting the Rooney Out line has come from the club, so presumably with implicit backing from Ferguson but not from the man himself. That's my point really, not about Fergie chatting to journo's in his spare time.
 
Amir said:
Rooney and Carrick in midfield or Carrick and Giggs in midfield, against Real Madrid, is just as absurd, really.
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Exactly. It's as if some people mix up Madrid with Macclesfield and think we could've just played 10 strikers and it would have been fine.
 
Gazza said:
No, I'm quite aware of that. Most journalists are suggesting the Rooney Out line has come from the club, so presumably with implicit backing from Ferguson but not from the man himself. That's my point really, not about Fergie chatting to journo's in his spare time.
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No but I mean isn't it possible the leak isn't authorised, so to speak? Good journalists don't just write what they're told officially, they're paid to squirrel out information they're not supposed to have, to nurture relationshops with people on the inside who feed them info. I'm not saying that is the case here, I don't think it is, but it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the journalists have been tipped off by someone who knows behind SAF's back.
 
Gazza said:
No, I'm quite aware of that. Most journalists are suggesting the Rooney Out line has come from the club, so presumably with implicit backing from Ferguson but not from the man himself. That's my point really, not about Fergie chatting to journo's in his spare time.
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Reading back previous post there I can see I didn't make that point clearly at all.
 
wr8_utd said:
This thread has really grown since Tuesday night!
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Yeah and it's gone proper shit! We the hell are people discussing tactics to which some fans here think is what we should have done? It's done. It's too late. Move on!

Fergie set up the perfect tactics and were working. Playing Rooney may have won us the game 5-0, or it may have lost us the game 2-0. Doesn't matter anymore.

Come Sunday, he'll score against Chelsea and the ones who've slated him recently will go on to say "Ah good old Wayne! :D". Rinse and repeat.
 
I'd love if someone set up a thread for ROONEY transfer speculation in the transfer forum and left this thread jsut to discuss his football.

Jaysus
 
Adebesi said:
No but I mean isn't it possible the leak isn't authorised, so to speak? Good journalists don't just write what they're told officially, they're paid to squirrel out information they're not supposed to have, to nurture relationshops with people on the inside who feed them info. I'm not saying that is the case here, I don't think it is, but it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the journalists have been tipped off by someone who knows behind SAF's back.
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Yeah, that's a good point actually. Could be all kinds of talk coming out of the club
 
Gazza said:
Ruud10 said Tim Howard is one of the league's "elite" keepers, comes across to me as someone who's only been watching football a short time, tbf.
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Yes, and we could only come up with three names of keepers who were clearly better than Howard, who has been consistently outstanding for Everton for 6 or 7 seasons. So who's the moron now?

Cech has been consistently very, very good for Chelsea for 8 or 9 seasons, but there were 3-4 seasons straight where Chelsea fans were asking whether he had lost it, after the head injuries. His play was dodgy, but you can understand why. I'd be the first to concede that Cech > Howard, but during that 3-4 span with Cech was a bit wobbly, Howard was the better keeper.

Hart is the better keeper today, without any question, but he's really only come onto the scene as one of the league's elite keepers over the last two, maybe three, seasons. But let's be honest...Hart has not played particularly well this season and he'd be the first to admit it. Yet there's no question that Hart is an elite keeper. The lockdown national team keeper, right?

My views on De Gea are well known. He's a substantially better keeper than Howard. But let's be honest here too...De Gea has only burst onto the scene in the English prem over the last season and a half. De Gea had his critics, whom I scoffed at, who suggested that De Gea was unfit, too soft, for the English prem yada yada yada. Those critics found comfort here on the caf too in writing such crap as "he'll learn someday" and similar idiotic shit. Yet there's no denying that De Gea is an elite keeper and in my estimation already one of the best keepers on the planet.

There's a case to be more for Lloris and I'd agree with that case. He's been brilliant this season, to the best of my knowledge his first season in the English prem. Sure, Lloris > Howard today, but not by much.

VDS was undeniably better than Howard for VDS's entire tenure as United keeper, but VDS was probably the consistently best keeper in the league during that spell. Reina had a fantastic 2-3 run where he was one of the top keepers on the planet. But that's now long in the rear view mirror and now is something of a bad joke. The English prem has seen a number of other solid keepers in recent years, but Howard has consistently been among the league's best keepers over the last 6-7 seasons. Not the best keeper today, not the best keeper in any one of the previous seasons and probably will never be the best keeper in the league in the future, but he's been consistently one of the top 3 or 4 keepers in a league with quite a few good keepers. Is that's not good enough for you, that's your problem.
 
He's in Ben Foster's class, no more. In a clutch of keepers where the difference in quality is negligible and who wouldn't look out out of place at many Premier League clubs but aren't special by any means.


Apologies for taking thread off course, no more keeper talk in here for me.
 
Ruud10 said:
Yes, and we could only come up with three names of keepers who were clearly better than Howard, who has been consistently outstanding for Everton for 6 or 7 seasons. So who's the moron now?

Cech has been consistently very, very good for Chelsea for 8 or 9 seasons, but there were 3-4 seasons straight where Chelsea fans were asking whether he had lost it, after the head injuries. His play was dodgy, but you can understand why. I'd be the first to concede that Cech > Howard, but during that 3-4 span with Cech was a bit wobbly, Howard was the better keeper.

Hart is the better keeper today, without any question, but he's really only come onto the scene as one of the league's elite keepers over the last two, maybe three, seasons. But let's be honest...Hart has not played particularly well this season and he'd be the first to admit it. Yet there's no question that Hart is an elite keeper. The lockdown national team keeper, right?

My views on De Gea are well known. He's a substantially better keeper than Howard. But let's be honest here too...De Gea has only burst onto the scene in the English prem over the last season and a half. De Gea had his critics, whom I scoffed at, who suggested that De Gea was unfit, too soft, for the English prem yada yada yada. Those critics found comfort here on the caf too in writing such crap as "he'll learn someday" and similar idiotic shit. Yet there's no denying that De Gea is an elite keeper and in my estimation already one of the best keepers on the planet.

There's a case to be more for Lloris and I'd agree with that case. He's been brilliant this season, to the best of my knowledge his first season in the English prem. Sure, Lloris > Howard today, but not by much.

VDS was undeniably better than Howard for VDS's entire tenure as United keeper, but VDS was probably the consistently best keeper in the league during that spell. Reina had a fantastic 2-3 run where he was one of the top keepers on the planet. But that's now long in the rear view mirror and now is something of a bad joke. The English prem has seen a number of other solid keepers in recent years, but Howard has consistently been among the league's best keepers over the last 6-7 seasons. Not the best keeper today, not the best keeper in any one of the previous seasons and probably will never be the best keeper in the league in the future, but he's been consistently one of the top 3 or 4 keepers in a league with quite a few good keepers. Is that's not good enough for you, that's your problem.
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Please dont bring your freaking discussion regarding your love for Tim Howard into the Rooney thread. Take it some place else.
 
Given Rooney's form can be intermittent, and given all the shit that's been written, and his disappointment about what happened in the CL, possible interest coming in from PSG or wherever else, all the distractions, how do people feel he will respond on the pitch? Do you think it'll fire him up or inhibit his game? I remember before he signed his contract his form wasn't great, but when he put pen to paper he went on a really good run. These things do seem to affect him, but if things are genuinely fine at the club I can see him rising to the occasion.
 
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