Wayne Rooney | 2012-14 Performances

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Brwned said:
If someone says he gives the ball away on so many occasions then it's entirely relevant to point to the fact that, actually, he didn't give it away that much. It doesn't tell you how they performed but it tells you how well they kept the ball. Rooney kept the ball well, he wasn't consistently surrendering possession like some people are suggesting, it's just that he had a couple of terrible balls (just as he did v Stoke) and for some reason they've been used to define his performance. Just compare him to van Persie. He completed more passes (at a higher rate), he was dispossessed less and he gave the ball away less, yet somehow Rooney's performance was up there with Nani v Chelsea. And we're supposed to believe that there's no agenda against Rooney here. Rooney didn't use the ball well but he didn't give it away much either.

Van Persie set up Kagawa's assist and gets praised for it, Rooney plays Evra into the exact same area with a great little ball but he messes up the cutback and it's instantly forgotten...people remember the highlights and the build-up to the goals but they don't remember the great pieces of play that don't end up with a goal. I'd say that's much more likely to give you a misleading perspective on things than having a look at a few numbers. There's that link up between Rooney, van Persie and Jones already mentioned that nearly led to a goal, then there was Rooney's shot from a nicely worked corner with van Persie that nearly creeped in...he wasn't bad. This game and the Stoke game were easily two of the worst van Persie's had for us yet no-one mentions it because of those highlight moments. Strange.
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Summed up perfectly.
 
I'm always being told how great Rooney is statistically. Funny how it never appears that way on the pitch, where it actually matters. People come in here and moan about him because he was shit, not because there's this grand Rooney conspiracy.
 
Absolutely. For two seasons straight Rooney's been living off his stats, god knows why Sir Alex keeps picking him out there. Baffling stuff really. When he's regularly playing like a pub footballer Sir Alex must just sit there and think "feck me, why did I even bother convincing him to stay, why am I paying this bloke £200k p/w? He's fecking useless". Well, either that or you just don't really like the bloke and like criticising him.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Aye, it's bizarre. Likewise the doubles standards that lead to this thread being full of comments about Rooney's goals this season masking poor performances, yet Van Persie's (offside) finish last night suddenly means he had a good game. Then, when people post stats about contributions other than goals to support the idea that Rooney out-performed van Persie on the night suddenly stats are pointless. Nowt so blind as those that will not see.

There were two moments which summed up RvP's night for me. In the first half he tried that little step over and drop of the shoulders he used to create the goal against Sunderland, only to fall over his own feet and leave the ball behind. Then, in the second half, he tried to dribble someone near the corner flag and dragged the ball almost a foot out of play. He was clumsy and off the pace all game. Really poor volley straight at the keeper from the Valencia cross too (shouldn't have been offside anyway, he was looking along the line)

But hey, the new caf consensus is that Van Persie's "bottom level" is better than Rooney's "bottom level" so he couldn't possibly have been worse on the night...
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I agree mostly with what you're saying, and RVP was poor last night... but that wasn't a poor volley! Countless number of players would have spooned/shanked that off to the side... but It was cracking technique from RVP... you're right in that he shouldn't have been offside in the first place.

Goals mask performances though... Rooney's had a few games for us in the past where he's been poor, but scored 1 or 2 and everyones gone home happy. That's just how the majority see it.
 
It's a point for another thread... but following on from that, in RVP and Hernandez... we have two strikers who can be generally pretty terrible at offside line management...

Rooney's however is generally quite good... though he's very rarely off the shoulder in fairness.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
I agree mostly with what you're saying, and RVP was poor last night... but that wasn't a poor volley! Countless number of players would have spooned/shanked that off to the side... but It was cracking technique from RVP... you're right in that he shouldn't have been offside in the first place.

Goals mask performances though... Rooney's had a few games for us in the past where he's been poor, but scored 1 or 2 and everyones gone home happy. That's just how the majority see it.
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Fair enough, I was probably getting carried away in my rant.

He did have a lot of the goal to aim at and the pass was inch perfect and right onto his stronger foot. He probably should/could have side footed it back where it came from. He went for power instead and whacked it straight at the keeper.It wasn't a poor volley though. I was wrong to say that.

Put it this way, if Rooney had failed to convert an identical chance you can bet the knives would be out.
 
Brwned said:
Absolutely. For two seasons straight Rooney's been living off his stats, god knows why Sir Alex keeps picking him out there. Baffling stuff really. When he's regularly playing like a pub footballer Sir Alex must just sit there and think "feck me, why did I even bother convincing him to stay, why am I paying this bloke £200k p/w? He's fecking useless". Well, either that or you just don't really like the bloke and like criticising him.
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Equally baffling how such a marvellous player can get so much criticism from his own fans, even more so that he was brought off last night when the numbers show he clearly played quite well.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Fair enough, I was probably getting carried away in my rant.

He did have a lot of the goal to aim at and the pass was inch perfect and right onto his stronger foot. He probably should/could have side footed it back where it came from. He went for power instead and whacked it straight at the keeper.It wasn't a poor volley though. I was wrong to say that.

Put it this way, if Rooney had failed to convert an identical chance you can bet the knives would be out.
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...Getting carried away with a rant? That doesn't sound like you!

And you're probably right on that Rooney point.

Currently, I'm just living in constant worry that we're selling the bloke in the Summer. Whatever he does on the pitch, or however he acts, good or bad, and my mind can somehow link it to him being away... it's not a good way to live.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Currently, I'm just living in constant worry that we're selling the bloke in the Summer. Whatever he does on the pitch, or however he acts, good or bad, and my mind can somehow link it to him being away... it's not a good way to live.
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I hear you on that one. When he went off I was looking in his eyes for clues. Damn the media for planting this ridiculous thought in my head, after the Madrid game I was arguing with everyone saying it was crazy to think he would go, now the idea has germinated in my mind and has grown out of control, like something out of the Little Shop Of Horrors.
 
Zen86 said:
Equally baffling how such a marvelous player can get so much criticism from his own fans, even more so that we was brought off last night when the numbers show he clearly played quite well.
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The numbers show he didn't give the ball away as much as this thread made out. Nobody said they showed he played well.
 
I've never called him a marvellous player or said that he played well. That's the thing. Whereas you regularly mention him playing like a pub footballer. You keep trying to paint this picture where Rooney's worshipped by so many fans and all you're doing is providing the balanced picture but it's just not the case. The only reason there's ongoing discussion in here is because so many people dislike Rooney, not because so many people love him. Surely you can see that? Getting weekly criticism from his own fans...well, these are the same sort of fans that wanted us to sell Ronaldo and bring in Lennon. They're the ones who judge footballers on their "personality", the ones who judge them on what they earn or how they behave and let that could their judgement when the game's on, because it's pretty clear what these people remember and what actually happened are two very different things. Otherwise he wouldn't have played enough games to score over 50 goals in two seasons.
 
Brwned said:
I've never called him a marvellous player or said that he played well. That's the thing. Whereas you regularly mention him playing like a pub footballer. You keep trying to paint this picture where Rooney's worshipped by so many fans and all you're doing is providing the balanced picture but it's just not the case. The only reason there's ongoing discussion in here is because so many people dislike Rooney, not because so many people love him. Surely you can see that? Getting weekly criticism from his own fans...well, these are the same sort of fans that wanted us to sell Ronaldo and bring in Lennon. They're the ones who judge footballers on their "personality", the ones who judge them on what they earn or how they behave and let that could their judgement when the game's on, because it's pretty clear what these people remember and what actually happened are two very different things. Otherwise he wouldn't have played enough games to score over 50 goals in two seasons.
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Sorry if you have said already, but of out of interest, what are you thoughts on whether Rooney will stay/ or if you want him to? Was interested as you give fairly detailed responses...
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Currently, I'm just living in constant worry that we're selling the bloke in the Summer. Whatever he does on the pitch, or however he acts, good or bad, and my mind can somehow link it to him being away... it's not a good way to live.
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Why? Say he goes; he wouldn't be the best player we've ever sold. We lost Cantona, replaced him, and won the treble. We sold Ronaldo and didn't get an adequate replacement in in Valencia (but then, how could we?). We did get a lot of money, and made a CL final not long after.

Say we sell Rooney, we've got Kagawa who I believe could be to us what Silva is to City. We'd surely get a good fee out of him (I refuse to believe we'd sell him for £25m. Try £40m.) And he can be replaced. He's not the indispensable member of the squad he once was. Cantona and Ronaldo were and we did fine. And if these are the sort of performances he's going to be putting in (not dissimilar to 2010/11), then are we really going to miss him?

When was the last time he was in a good run of form by the way? Have a look down http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/results that and see. I could be wrong, but it seems like a while since we've said 'Rooney's playing well isn't he?'

Imagine we sell Rooney, play Kagawa where he should be played and - long shot I know - buy a midfielder.

He wouldn't even be going to a rival either, he'd be more than likely fecking off to France.
 
If we do sell Rooney the team will have to change it's whole mentality when in possession of the ball. Everything tends to go through him whether he collects the ball from deep or drops deep to receive it himself.

You can see when there is nothing obvious on our players look to give him the ball at every opportunity. He would 100 percent need replacing with a quality player if we allowed him to go.
 
Rooney gave the ball away loads, I can't believe that's even being brought up. As others have said it also looked like he couldn't be arsed. Sure RvP had a poor game but he was still better than Rooney and looked like he cared for the result. Rooney sleepwalked through the whole game as he has in many games this season.
 
shaggy said:
Rooney gave the ball away loads, I can't believe that's even being brought up. As others have said it also looked like he couldn't be arsed. Sure RvP had a poor game but he was still better than Rooney and looked like he cared for the result. Rooney sleepwalked through the whole game as he has in many games this season.
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Just saying that doesn't make it true.
 
Liam147 said:
Why? Say he goes; he wouldn't be the best player we've ever sold. We lost Cantona, replaced him, and won the treble. We sold Ronaldo and didn't get an adequate replacement in in Valencia (but then, how could we?). We did get a lot of money, and made a CL final not long after.

Say we sell Rooney, we've got Kagawa who I believe could be to us what Silva is to City. We'd surely get a good fee out of him (I refuse to believe we'd sell him for £25m. Try £40m.) And he can be replaced. He's not the indispensable member of the squad he once was. Cantona and Ronaldo were and we did fine. And if these are the sort of performances he's going to be putting in (not dissimilar to 2010/11), then are we really going to miss him?

When was the last time he was in a good run of form by the way? Have a look down http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/results that and see. I could be wrong, but it seems like a while since we've said 'Rooney's playing well isn't he?'

Imagine we sell Rooney, play Kagawa where he should be played and - long shot I know - buy a midfielder.

He wouldn't even be going to a rival either, he'd be more than likely fecking off to France.
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Because I like him and I'd rather we keep him.

I'm not going to throw myself off a cliff over it or anything, but yeah... I'd rather we didn't sell him.
 
Rooney played as if he knows his future lies elsewhere, and has played like that for most of the season.

In 2010 when he demanded a transfer, citing a "lack of ambition in the transfer market", he was seen as indispensible. Since then we brought in van Persie, and now he's come in and proved to be the main man. Writing appears to be on the wall for Wayne I'm afraid.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Because I like him and I'd rather we keep him.

I'm not going to throw myself off a cliff over it or anything, but yeah... I'd rather we didn't sell him.
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Well that seems more reasoned.
stand_free said:
In 2010 when he demanded a transfer, citing a "lack of ambition in the transfer market", he was seen as indispensible. Since then we brought in van Persie, and now he's come in and proved to be the main man. Writing appears to be on the wall for Wayne I'm afraid.
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That line, however worded, still makes me smile.
 
Hectic said:
Do you think Wayne was better than RVP last night?
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He does. Pogue has this thing about liking certain players more, you won't see him say too much of bad things about Rooney for instance, same as he won't praise Kagawa (Rafael in the past, I think) too much when he's doing well.
 
Liam147 said:
Well that seems more reasoned.


That line, however worded, still makes me smile.
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It looks like it's coming back to bite him. The one massive signing (as in finished article type signing) we made since then has usurped him as the golden boy.
 
The big problem as I see it is that Rooney and RvP don't seem to do well when they play together. Without checking their stats - I have a feeling that both players score at least equally many goals with the other player not on the pitch. Especially RvP seem to do a lot better when he is paired with Hernandez....
 
Jaybezia said:
Sorry if you have said already, but of out of interest, what are you thoughts on whether Rooney will stay/ or if you want him to? Was interested as you give fairly detailed responses...
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We should do what we always do. Do our best to keep him but if he's intent on leaving then ship him off. He's a top class player and we'll always keep hold of them unless there's a rift with the manager. Something's not quite right with him at the moment but I think that's more a lack of confidence than any rift between the two. If we sold him it'd be a step backwards and unless we're forced to we don't take steps backwards.

Cantona wanted to leave England in 1995, we convinced him to stay on; Keane wanted to leave in 2000, we convinced him to stay on; Ronaldo wanted to leave in 2006, we convinced him to stay on; Rooney wanted to leave in 2010, we convinced him to stay on. Cantona was named the best player in the league in '96, Keane was named the best player in the league in 2001, Ronaldo was named the best player in the league in 2007...that's why we fought so hard to keep them, and we'll continue to do that with Rooney. On the subject of Keane, I still find it bemusing that some think what Keane did and what Rooney did are worlds apart.
I said all along if the deal was right I would sign, because deep down I didn't want to leave and I think United knew that. Deep down I didn't really think I'd be comfortable living in a foreign country. I fancied a different challenge, I spoke to the manager about that, but sometimes you've got to follow your gut feeling and my gut feeling was to stay at Manchester United.
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Keane considered moving abroad for a new challenge if we didn't pay him fairly, surely that's the same? His ambitions didn't align with the club's during the contract saga, he demanded to be paid a certain wage and he was open to the idea of moving abroad.

Sarni said:
He does. Pogue has this thing about liking certain players more, you won't see him say too much of bad things about Rooney for instance, same as he won't praise Kagawa (Rafael in the past, I think) too much when he's doing well.
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I was called a van Persie apologist just a week ago but I thought Rooney was the better of the two.
 
Sarni said:
He does. Pogue has this thing about liking certain players more, you won't see him say too much of bad things about Rooney for instance, same as he won't praise Kagawa (Rafael in the past, I think) too much when he's doing well.
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What utter bollox.

I always describe performances as I see them. No matter which player I'm talking about.

Just like everyone else, I form my own opinions about the overall contribution of players in any given season. It takes more than one or two bad/good performances to change these opinions. That's just being consistent. feck all to do with "liking" anyone. Why would I "like" one player more than any others anyway?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Absolutely.

Been discussed at length already in this thread. All the stats support my opinion too.

Neither of them were very good (neither of them were awful either) but Rooney put in the better, less error strewn, performance.
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Blimey.
 
Everyone on here loves RvP, some people on here have a dislike (an irrational dislike at times for Rooney), sadly that means that Rooney is going to be treated far harsher for his poor performances.

Neither of them were very good last ngiht but it's pretty obvious (to me) that Rooney was the better of the two yet he's getting absolutely hammered for his performance where as RvP's is largely ignored due to the goal.
 
Why was Rooney the one to get hauled off then? Fergie obviously thought we had a better chance without him on the pitch.
 
I think he needs to given a definite role in the team or else he will not improve. I mean, where exactly does he play? It's hard to know whether he's a striker, a no.10, a wide player or, most recently, a central midfielder. I'm sure he is not too happy with this either as he's far too talented to be used as a utility player imo.

How can we expect his performances to be consistent when his position keeps changing?

It will be interesting to see what role he is given next year, if indeed he is still at the club.
 
Orton said:
Why was Rooney the one to get hauled off then? Fergie obviously thought we had a better chance without him on the pitch.
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There are reasons for that which have nothing to do with how well they played on the night.

Rooney had been playing in midfield so had covered more ground and was more tired.

RvP takes brilliant corners and that might be our best chance of a goal with West Ham defending deep.

There wasn't a huge difference between them anyway. I just thought it was enough of a difference to be noticeable and the stick Rooney has been getting in comparison to RvP is more about preconceptions than actual performances.
 
IMO Rooney's problems are all mental, this will be my only contribution to this thread. He's got bags of ability, his mindset is just not there, which is why I am 100% convinced he won't be here in 2-3 years unless he overhauls his entire life.

He's a mess.
 
Zen86 said:
I'm always being told how great Rooney is statistically. Funny how it never appears that way on the pitch, where it actually matters. People come in here and moan about him because he was shit, not because there's this grand Rooney conspiracy.
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Cina said:
Everyone on here loves RvP, some people on here have a dislike (an irrational dislike at times for Rooney), sadly that means that Rooney is going to be treated far harsher for his poor performances.

Neither of them were very good last ngiht but it's pretty obvious (to me) that Rooney was the better of the two yet he's getting absolutely hammered for his performance where as RvP's is largely ignored due to the goal.
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Rooney nowadays reminds me of Carrick 2 seasons ago. There was a large portion of our fans saying he is playing shit... Because he was playing shit more often than not. Then there was a large minority that said he was just hated and so nothing he could do would ever be good enough. They said abou Carrick it was a tragedy he isn't in the England squad and several managers and the majority of our fan base must have just blindly hated him for some unknown reason. Two seasons later he's actually playing really well and everyone is crediting him as such. He'll be an England regular because in this form he deserves to be. When he was playing worse than Barry for 2-3 seasons he was... Not selected ahead of Barry, go figure.

If Rooney starts playing well the criticism in this thread will die a death just like the Carrick thread has. If RVP starts playing shit on a regular basis you'll see his thread start to become lively with negative comments. It's not really rocket science and our fan base doesn't just love or hate certain players for no reason.

Pogue Mahone said:
Just saying that doesn't make it true.
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Likewise the contraire.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
There wasn't a huge difference between them anyway. I just thought it was enough of a difference to be noticeable and the stick Rooney has been getting in comparison to RvP is more about preconceptions than actual performances.
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Don't think so. RvP got criticised quite a lot in recent weeks. More to do with him scoring the goal I guess. If he hadnt he would get more stick for that performance.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
There are reasons for that which have nothing to do with how well they played on the night.

Rooney had been playing in midfield so had covered more ground and was more tired.

RvP takes brilliant corners and that might be our best chance of a goal with West Ham defending deep.

There wasn't a huge difference between them anyway. I just thought it was enough of a difference to be noticeable and the stick Rooney has been getting in comparison to RvP is more about preconceptions than actual performances.
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I didn't want Rooney to come off, I was actually surprised he was first to be hooked when we were chasing a goal. They were both poor, I suppose people will say rvp was more effective because of the parts he played in the goals which effectively got us the draw.
 
finneh said:
Rooney nowadays reminds me of Carrick 2 seasons ago. There was a large portion of our fans saying he is playing shit... Because he was playing shit more often than not. Then there was a large minority that said he was just hated and so nothing he could do would ever be good enough. They said abou Carrick it was a tragedy he isn't in the England squad and several managers and the majority of our fan base must have just blindly hated him for some unknown reason. Two seasons later he's actually playing really well and everyone is crediting him as such. He'll be an England regular because in this form he deserves to be. When he was playing worse than Barry for 2-3 seasons he was... Not selected ahead of Barry, go figure.

If Rooney starts playing well the criticism in this thread will die a death just like the Carrick thread has. If RVP starts playing shit on a regular basis you'll see his thread start to become lively with negative comments. It's not really rocket science and our fan base doesn't just love or hate certain players for no reason.
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Alternatively, Carrick was always playing well and never deserved the stick he got from some United fans too blinkered to see what he brings to the team. He's now playing exceptionally well. So well that even the numb-nuts I referred to above are forced to grudgingly admit he's a class act. The England stuff is irrelevant. He might still have missed out this season if Wilshere had stayed fit and Lampard/Parker been playing regularly for their clubs.

Likewise with Rooney. If he puts in some absolutely outstanding performances the praise will be unanimous. If not, anything approaching an average display will bring out the usual suspects saying he's peaked and should be sold.

Of course the fanbase don't love or hate players without reason. What they can, though, is fail to grasp the quality provided by some of our less eye-catching or aggressive players and allow preconceptions and prejudice cloud their opinion about performances of certain others.

I can still remember vividly how long it took the hive-mind to decide that, hey, Patrice Evra is actually quite good at football. It took about a dozen great performances for him to get the praise he deserved.
 
I think if Rooney had scored from that corner people wouldn't be saying he was poor. It was very close, he maybe mishit his shot a bit.

He was subbed, sometimes it's a tactical decision but it could have been his fitness. If I rememeber it correctly when he came off I thought he looked a little under the weather.
 
Anyone defending that performance from Rooney last night needs to take another look. He put in a minimal amount of effort and did little to warrant selection for the next game. Rvp was fecking Dire as well, why does it have to be about one or the other? Both were shit and quite frankly the next game SHOULD see Kagawa starting behind Hernandez.
 
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