I wouldn't be devastated if he went any more, from an on the pitch point of view. But we'd have to have an amazing replacement immediately and not a grower that is average and doesn't actually grow much. I'd rather keep Rooney til the end of his career than not though. Rooney will attract other big players to United as well, like I've said. So let's actually fecking get some.
Wayne Rooney | 2012-14 Performances
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This thread never fails to disappoint. 
That's rubbish opinion though.
I agree 100% with that, he's a great player who's on his way to become the all time goalscorer of the club or at least get very close and will end up as a club legend if he retires here.I hope he does because it can only help Man United
and why's that?
/conversation
To be fair, every player during the summer breaks puts on a bit of weight (a couple of pounds) and there's a session during the first training during pre-season where they weigh them and decide of a training plan. Rooney explains this in his autobiography, and also says that one summer he came back having put on 7 pounds which he saw as a catastrophe. Most players do put on a bit of weight during the summer, which seems natural as they're not doing any training after months of intense sport.
Oh come on, the shape Rooney comes back in after the summer break is not the norm.
Every year? I know there's been a couple of pre-seasons where he's come back really unfit, but over the 8 pre-seasons or whatever it is he's been with us, more often than not he's come back in acceptable shape no? (by acceptable shape I mean like someone who just needs to get back into the swing of things)
It's a genuine question, I don't have a good enough memory to remember his shape at the beginning of each pre-season. I have the feeling that people are rather taking a couple of years where he was dreadfully unfit when coming back and making it the norm.
It's a genuine question, I don't have a good enough memory to remember his shape at the beginning of each pre-season. I have the feeling that people are rather taking a couple of years where he was dreadfully unfit when coming back and making it the norm.
When was the last time Rooney ran the show on a big stage? I'm not Rooney's biggest fan but I still recognize his quality when on form, so every time we've went in to a big game this season I've given him a chance and hoped that he'd finally put in a big performance. I honestly can't think of one game this season where he's done that. I'm sure he's had some last season but I can't think of any (probably due to shit memory), the last time I can remember him running the show in a big game was 10/11 in the Chelsea games where he was genuinely excellent that entire second half of the season.
The away game to City, he was brilliant in my opinion.
Sell him for a magic bean
Thought he was OK against City. Had a lung busting run where he showed great pace; if only Welbeck had stuck his head out of his arse for a split second...
He looked like he gave a shit, and he worked quite hard. Also, he showed great body strength and was able to take the ball down on his chest with a defender pushing him - that is the good old Rooney! He does give the ball away too often though - even if Giggs was out of his f***** mind to try that backheel, Rooney would give the ball away in similar ways too, albeit not the the catastrophic result of Giggs'.
He looked like he gave a shit, and he worked quite hard. Also, he showed great body strength and was able to take the ball down on his chest with a defender pushing him - that is the good old Rooney! He does give the ball away too often though - even if Giggs was out of his f***** mind to try that backheel, Rooney would give the ball away in similar ways too, albeit not the the catastrophic result of Giggs'.
I'm not so sure about that, Rooney does have a reputation as being a bit slow at the start of the season after all.
True that, and he does at least look a bit in and out of shape at times. There are pictures where he looks quite fit, and others where he actually looks ever so slightly chubby (for a footballer).
How much worse would United be without Rooney? We have Kagawa who can play as number ten and we have RVP (better or not, he has shown this season that he can be our main man up front) who can play as the striker.
Will our team be more or less fluid without him? Imo, Kagawa can be more creative than Rooney; he has better technique, better short passing, but he isn't as strong or as direct, nor will he score as many goals.
I'll take your word for it, I honestly don't remember well enough. Though to be honest being a slow starter isn't necessarily synonymous of coming back in bad shape, it's just that he's the type of player that needs to build up momentum over a few games and often starts slowly, but he's not the only one.
He was excellent at the Etihad this season. He traditionally shits on Arsenal too, so look for him to have another top game in a couple of weeks or so.
Resorting to calling him fat now.
Unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
He wasn't that great on our last three CL Finals. For a so called "world class" or become a United legend, he didn't run the show or did anything amazing in any of them. Or anything that close to be memorable.
I think everybody is comparing him to Ronaldo and Messi and expecting him to be like them.. They have clouded the perception of this generation, which is focused on stats.
Against Chelsea, I remember being so absorded and so bloody tense I don't really remember much of the individual performances of our players. The first final against Barça, most of our players were below par in my souvenir, Barça were just that good. As for the one in Wembley, on the contrary, he was one of the only ones (along with Fabio, I think?) who kinda stood out even though Barça were once again the much better side. Taking just the finals into account, and especially those two against Barça where we got our gameplan wrong in my opinion, isn't really indicative of anything. However you have to admit that over the years in the knock-out rounds in the CL he's usually been very good.
That is strange, he scored a brilliant goal in our last CL Final, I would call that something 'close to being memorable'. Expecting him to 'run the show' in our last two finals would have been totally unrealistic considering how far we were from the team that we played.
He was the one player who looked even slightly like doing something against Barca at Wembley.
On the contrary, I think stats are generally Rooney's biggest defence. I don't think anyone criticises him because of his output.
Me personally, I believe it is his stats that make him world-class, or at least it is the biggest contributing factor. I mean, goals aside, watching him quite often in open play, he looks anything but world-class.
I'd also add that on that night Busquets had a lot fewer successful passes than usual (around 80, compared to the 100-110 that he completed on average during their run to the final). Rooney tried his best to harass him... but as he had nobody to help him it only resulted in Xavi being even more influential than usual.
10 years ago he would have been seen as a genius. Now he is constantly criticized. IF he wins another CL, it would be safe to say he will go down as one of our greatest ever. The only 2 who have done that so far are Giggs and Scholes.
Maybe because 10 years ago his game consisted of more genius than it does now. Why is it even relevant how he was rated a decade ago? Watching him now, it is clear he is no footballing 'genius'.
10 years ago he was a teenager who was a vastly inferior footballer to the player he is today. "Genius" is a meaningless description, in terms of judging a footballer but he's clearly world class, using any definition of that phrase.
The only relevant definition of a world class player is whether or not any team in the world would play him. I believe that Wayne Rooney would get into any football team in the world if they had his contract; if you don't think him world class then you'd have to disagree with that.
So to those who don't believe Rooney a being one of the best players in the world; which teams do you think wouldn't want him?
If you play him up top he'd get in to basically every team, maybe not Barcelona but that's more because of the system they use with Messi through the middle. Playing behind the striker there are probably quite a few teams he wouldn't get in.
I meant to say that if he played the way he was playing now, 10 years ago, he would still be hailed as a genius.
It had no relation to how he was as a teenager. I find the constant need to criticize our players baffling, and more than a little stupid.
Not everybody likes Rooney as a person ( I certainly don't), but to deny he is a world-class player is madness,
Yea, fair enough I suppose. Personally, I don't think 'genius' is a meaningless footballing term, but I can't really prove that so I won't go there. I do think that many footballing fans could probably tell/agree on a footballing 'genius' when they see one though, and I believe that Rooney, as a younger player, was more likely to be described as such. Again, this obviously cannot be proven with a bunch of statistics, so I appreciate that it may not be accepted by all.
Heh. It's funny how widespread this opinion is now. Seems like only yesterday the vast majority of people on here were convinced that Fergie was making a huge mistake by playing Rooney in a more advanced role.
Personally, I think his ability to be equally at home as a 9 or a 10 is one of the main reasons he'd be such an asset to any football team.
Someone made a point a long time ago how Rooney has managed to gel with a large amount of strike partners.. playing behind Ruud and Saha, playing in front of Tevez and Berbatov, playing behind Hernandez, Welbeck and now Van Persie. And yet he still managed to contribute a great deal to our team no matter who he played with. Would be crazy to sell him.
I just think that people get carried away with talented young prospects. Especially when they're as good as Rooney. If Rooney goes on to finish his career at United and ends up as the most prolific goal-scorer in the history of the club, all the hype around his earlier years will probably justified with hindsight.
While he's actually still playing, though, it's almost impossible for him to match the expectations that surrounded him when he first burst on the scene. He's being compared with a mythical version of himself, "El Blanco Pele".
I would've been one of the ones agreeing with that. I hated Rooney up top the season he got 40+ goals or whatever it was, it was my least favorite season playing wise from him while he has been here. I really just don't think he's been consistent enough these last two years behind a striker for us to rely on him as our creative outlet anymore. His touch is just far too inconsistent.
As shallow and superficial as this may sound but I'm certain that one of the reasons why Rooney is perceived to have declined or not having fulfilled his potential is because in his early days he was a bit quicker and he often ran at defenders with pace. He frequently had these bursts of pace with the ball at his feet which were exciting and got people off their seat.
He rarely does that these days and some consider him an inferior footballer because of that. Which is rubbish in my opinion. The criticism of his all-round, general play is valid to a point: the gap between his bottom level and top level can be huge, when he's off his game and starts trying too hard he can really mess up even the most basic things. It doesn't happen often though but when it does it's spectacular. That skews perceptions imho.
I find the recent speculation about his and Chicharito's future laughable ATM.If anything it should be one league goal Welbeck that should be slightly worried. Which is already a stretch...
But he was one of our world class player. One offside goal on the last CL final doesn't make him of 'having an amazing game'. But yeah. It depends on the level of world class. If the like of Falcao is world class, Rooney must be in also.
It's a bit of a fine line though I reckon. I think there is room to say that while Rooney has become a top player, he hasn't developed into the type of player initially predicted.
And while 'The White Pele' is of course an extremely high standard, the point was - that was genuinely what people thought Rooney was capable of becoming. I mean, Messi was often compared to Diego in his younger years, and he has since gone on to justify that (and then some!). Many thought Rooney could go on to be one of the greats of the game, but then I don't think the answer is always to say in hindsight that 'those predictions were too harsh/impossible'. Some players are actually that talented that they can go on to justify, as Messi has proven. Therefore, perhaps Rooney was put into that bracket himself, and as good as he has become, he has still fallen short of it.
It's easy to say it was unfair to compare Rooney to the greats but very fair to compare Messi to the greats in hindsight. At the time, United fans would have been arguing with everyone left, right and centre that Rooney was not inferior to Messi and Ronaldo.
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