Right so our midfield two was equal to theirs?
Wayne Rooney | 2012-14 Performances
- Thread starter gooDevil
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Right so our midfield two was equal to theirs?
No, where did I say that? Toure was the best player on the pitch along with Kompany and he did more than Carrick and Fellaini combined. Why do you keep replying to things that haven't been said. All I'm saying is that City did drop off when they went 4-0 up and that helped us to get more possession.
Our whole team was appalling against City, it happens.
Why do you keep replying to things that haven't been said. All I'm saying is that City did drop off when they went 4-0 up and that helped us to get more possession.
Our whole team was appalling against City, it happens.
Our midfield twos are inadequate against the better teams and lack presence. My only point is playing:
Kagawa-Carrick-Cleverley
or
Fellaini-Carrick-Kagawa/Cleverley
will stand more of a chance of controlling a game than just:
Carrick-Fellaini
Carrick-Cleverley
Against the majority of PL teams I think we are OK with a two, but against City/Arsenal/ maybe Tottenham and a few teams in Europe I think were at a disadvantage with two in midfield.
Basically though it's about balancing Rooney's position, Kagawa could easily be swapped out for Rooney there. Recently Rooney has played quite high but we know he can play more as an a/m or out and out number ten and that's where he can help the midfield more. I agree that we do need that as it just opens up a bit more space for the midfielders to work with as they won't get pressed as easily with another closer option to pass too.
But I think it would help more just to have a better player in with Carrick than they are. Clev retains the ball well but can't actually do much threateningly with it. We're yet to see what Fellaini will bring there, not much though so far.
Thanks for the comments.
Really? Apart from the outstanding save yesterday I can't remember much he has done worthy of noting, and I am a massive Big Dave fan.
Couple of points to make. Firstly It gets on my nerves when I read people saying he doesn't have a touch; that video quite clearly shows he does.
Secondly, he really has perfected his free kick hasn't he? 3 in 7 games is quite some stat.
And thirdly, those long balls are just
Makes me miss Scholes less and less.Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney believes the players have let manager David Moyes down so far this season.
Moyes replaced Sir Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford this summer and United have claimed just 10 points from their opening seven Barclays Premier League games under his tenure.
The Red Devils looked to be slipping to a fourth league defeat of the season on Saturday after a poor first half against Sunderland before two goals from Adnan Januzaj handed them a 2-1 win.
And while Rooney believes a period of transition is inevitable with a new manager, he still insists the players have to do better for their boss.
"Obviously the manager is under a bit of pressure, but we know as a team it's us who have let him down," he told national newspapers.
"We have to pull together for the manager and show the sort of fight we have done here and we'll be fine.
"This will be a transition season, because it's a new manager with different styles and we have to adapt to them.
"More importantly we need to do better for him than we have been."
Moyes handed Januzaj a surprise first start against the Black Cats and the young Belgian repaid his manager's faith with a stunning performance as well as his two goals.
Rooney admits that throwing the 18-year-old into a struggling team could have been considered a risk but he was pleased that the decision paid dividends.
"There was big pressure on us, but the manager has trusted him and he has repaid that," he added.
"He's very confident, that's great to see. A lot of the young players who come through are a little bit timid and shy, but he looks comfortable and he's confident in his own ability, which you need to be.
"It was a brave move to play him in the circumstances and we're delighted it's paid off."
Moyes replaced Sir Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford this summer and United have claimed just 10 points from their opening seven Barclays Premier League games under his tenure.
The Red Devils looked to be slipping to a fourth league defeat of the season on Saturday after a poor first half against Sunderland before two goals from Adnan Januzaj handed them a 2-1 win.
And while Rooney believes a period of transition is inevitable with a new manager, he still insists the players have to do better for their boss.
"Obviously the manager is under a bit of pressure, but we know as a team it's us who have let him down," he told national newspapers.
"We have to pull together for the manager and show the sort of fight we have done here and we'll be fine.
"This will be a transition season, because it's a new manager with different styles and we have to adapt to them.
"More importantly we need to do better for him than we have been."
Moyes handed Januzaj a surprise first start against the Black Cats and the young Belgian repaid his manager's faith with a stunning performance as well as his two goals.
Rooney admits that throwing the 18-year-old into a struggling team could have been considered a risk but he was pleased that the decision paid dividends.
"There was big pressure on us, but the manager has trusted him and he has repaid that," he added.
"He's very confident, that's great to see. A lot of the young players who come through are a little bit timid and shy, but he looks comfortable and he's confident in his own ability, which you need to be.
"It was a brave move to play him in the circumstances and we're delighted it's paid off."
I'm not talking about after the window when hopefully we will strengthen, I'm talking about now with the players we have currently. Moyes has stated he won't be asking Rooney to play deeper and will only play him as a forward, and that's how it is atm with him notably staying higher up the pitch more. I just think against the top sides, with better midfields than ours, we are putting our selves at a disadvantage by playing two in midfield and two up top. As I stated before against the majority of teams in the league it isn't a problem as we can manage with two in CM but there are certain teams which our two in the middle struggle or get overrun by their three or stronger pair.
If I was him, I'd keep wearing that headband thing. It's working.
Its like when he had the hair plugs done, he played really well when he first had that done as well. He appears to be a man who needs to know things are being taken care of on top of his head, so he can focus on his football. Maybe when it comes to negotiating a new contract we could throw in a large selection of hats, or a a personal hatter to design headwear to fit each and every specific occasion.
Well with the players we already have, we only have one tough CL game left being Bayer Lev away and tbh I don't think we need to go as defensive as we did against Shaktar, in fact I thought we were a little too defensive. I agree though that in general with our current choices in the middle, playing as they are , playing with Rooney high could lead to issues.
That said another factor is how we progress with the other two attackers. Players like Nani, Januzaj and Kagawa aren't as defensively strong as say Valencia, but they will help keep possession better and deal with pressing imo, by playing closer to the central midfielders. That a big part of how other teams over run us. It' isn't their two being better than our 2, it's more the fact that they have between 4 to 5 players all playing quite narrow in the middle. We on the other hand when we have valancia and young, play such a wide system that there's always big gaps between our midfielders and the wingers, making it harder for the midfielders to find a passing option that isn't backwards and allows them to be squeezed more.
Having more players happy to come inside will give the likes of Carrick more options closer by and I think will ease the pressure.
But I agree that if Rooney does play high as he seems to be doing than it will cause issues but I still think we're trying to find the right balance for him.
Right balance? 9 years and 200 goals later, we are finding a right balance?
He has to play behind the striker and that's his right balance. Just the fact that we have wingers in shite form now does not mean that we have to pull our best player out of position. Blind leading the blind. If others are playing a narrow formations, then our wingers should have oodles of space out wide to exploit, right? Why is that not happening. To be blunt, we may have more talent, but in recent times the form and end product of most have been near crap, end result being at this moment, they have better players than us. And that is no reson enough to break the only area where we are doing OK overall. Defence is shite. Miedfield evenmore so, forwards are the saving grace atm.
"feck him, fat cnut, past it, rubbish, under 20m, sell him".
Maybe a tin foil hat? I'm sure he'd look great with one!
He is right. Obviously we can talk all day about team selection, tactics and all that but the simple matter is, a lot of the time, players individual mistakes have cost the team. That's not the managers fault, he can't go out and trap the ball for them. At times in games this season, the players have had a touch the touch of a rapist.
It really shouldn't need a football player to point out that a team of football players underperforming might be at fault for the team...underperforming.
Nothing against Rooney, more the tide against Moyes who refuse to consider the more obvious factors.
Nothing against Rooney, more the tide against Moyes who refuse to consider the more obvious factors.
Certainly against West Brom I can't see much that Moyes did wrong. The players just never got off their arses. That was our one really unforgivable defeat so far this season for me.
Right balance? 9 years and 200 goals later, we are finding a right balance?
If others are playing a narrow formations, then our wingers should have oodles of space out wide to exploit, right? Why is that not happening. To be blunt, we may have more talent, but in recent times the form and end product of most have been near crap, end result being at this moment, they have better players than us. And that is no reson enough to break the only area where we are doing OK overall. Defence is shite. Miedfield evenmore so, forwards are the saving grace atm.
Well no, there's clearly a difference in how Rooney plays off the striker. Contrast for example how he played against City last season anyway from home, he was virtually an a/m, other times he's played much closer to RVP, before RVP we've seen us go with one up top in a 433, that's the balance I'm talking about. Everything we've heard about Rooney this summer indicates that he wants to be in the goals and he feels to do that he needs to play upfield. Unfortunately that could put more pressure on us as a team.
Of course our wingers haven't been great and need to do better but that doesn't mean there are problems elsewhere. We've seen it time and time again where we get overrun in the middle because whilst we have two players, other teams have 5, having their 2, plus their attackers who are all coming short. It's all well and good saying we should have space out wide but it can be hard to pick those players out when you're getting so hounded. All that ends up happenning is the wingers get pulled further back and then are too deep to really be able to run at people. As I said, of course some of that is due to our wingers being well below par, some of it though is us simply needing at least one other person to drop deeper more often, and it would make sense for that person to be someone who's playing centrally i.e. one of the strikers.
So personally I don't see a problem at all in thinking maybe we do need to find a better balance with Rooney. It's early days yet but the same problems of getting a bit overrun in the middle is there. Some of it is down to the midfield quality but some of it is simply numerical. Maybe its better for Rooney personally in terms of his goal return to play higher, but maybe its better for the team as a whole for him to play deeper.
People love to talk bollocks about our formation and setup and all these reasons we get overrun in midfield when very little of it corresponds to the reality. If you look at Arsenal's and United's last game you'll see Ozil and Rooney took up roughly the same position in relation to the two centre mids and the striker. Both interpret the role differently of course but this idea that we're essentially playing 442 just because Rooney is a "striker" is silly. Rooney still helps out in midfield a lot.
No striker plays like this:
Ozil = #11
Flamini = #20
Arteta = #8
Giroud = #12
Rooney = #10
Carrick = #16
Cleverley = #23
van Persie = #20
Flamini = #20
Arteta = #8
Giroud = #12
Rooney = #10
Carrick = #16
Cleverley = #23
van Persie = #20
No striker plays like this:
I don't think anyone says he always plays high or deep but it does vary, and it's not just Rooney, you can see from your pictures alone how many more bodies Arsenal have concentrated in a smaller area of the pitch. That's not to say their way is best or our way is wrong but I personally think it does contribute, being generally more spread out from the wide players to the attackers to us sometimes getting a bit overrun in the middle.
Very true. People always assume because he's a striker that he errs more towards the 'striker' side of a #10 than the 'midfielder' side, but in my experience it's been quite the opposite. Last season he was dropping far deeper and performing a much more rounded role than the likes of Mata and Cazorla.
The difference is in the specialisation. Players like Kagawa and Ozil are very specialised #10s. Rooney, on the other hand, essentially plays a free role. He does whatever he feels like doing or whatever he thinks the team needs. As a result he ends up all over the pitch, doing all sorts of things, whereas those others tend to be more disciplined about staying in the hole and focussing on their creative role.
If we have been playing something resembling a 4-4-2 (under Fergie and partly under Moyes so far) it's not because of Rooney - but rather because we have been wont to field much more traditional, line-hugging wingers than what is common at the top level these days. Rooney has certainly not played as a "striker" more than he has as a "CAM" or a "No10" or what have you. If anything his tendency to drop deep under Fergie meant we played 4-5-1 more than 4-4-2 at times.
I agree with the point about specialization - Rooney's role for us has been a hybrid one, quite hard to nail down, actually. There aren't anyone else who springs to mind - who have played just that role.
I agree with the point about specialization - Rooney's role for us has been a hybrid one, quite hard to nail down, actually. There aren't anyone else who springs to mind - who have played just that role.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/oct/09/wayne-rooney-reasons-leave-manchester-united
Apparently he wanted to leave because he was, "asked to play in midfield and did not want to'.
Apparently he wanted to leave because he was, "asked to play in midfield and did not want to'.
No! You're lying! Rooney never wanted to leave! It's all a conspiracy! HE NEVER SAID HE WANTED TO GO!
Oh... oh dear. So he actually did want to go?
A lot of that comes across as self-serving bullshit, if I'm honest. I know he's trying to keep his options open but as was mentioned, he didn't play in midfield that often.
He hardly ever played in midfield, Brophs. The fact is, he got dropped for the odd game cos his form had gone to shit. He wouldn't have been dropped if we'd not signed van Persie of course, but in doing that, Rooney became a dispensable member of the squad.
The best thing about it all is that he's brough the entire situation upon himself.
The worst thing is that he'll probably break Sir Bobby's goalscoring record, sealing lifelong adulation from large sections of our support.
And did not Rooney realise that he was asked to play in in midfield because he was both good and versatile enough to help the team when it needed it. The last time this club was at the heigh of its powers attitudes such as those expressed in that article would have seen us fall short.
So he's happy and settled now as he has got his own way, albeit with the side lacking much needed creativity and influence through the centre.
So he's happy and settled now as he has got his own way, albeit with the side lacking much needed creativity and influence through the centre.
On Januzaj: "He's a tremendous talent, but is he from Belgium, or Croatia, or something?"Shocking news. I am shocked.
Ah well... at least he wants to stay for now. Water. Bridge. Garfunkel.
Aw shit, that would be awful, him scoring feckloads of goals for us.
Talk about hating a player over supporting the club
Aw shit, that would be awful, him scoring feckloads of goals for us.
Talk about hating a player over supporting the club
Erm, no, I'd just rather he left at the end of the year and we got a suitable replacement in. I'm not saying that I shed a tear every time he nears the record. It'll just be a shame that he'll get it and it'll stay in place for some time. Of all the people, could you think of anyone less like Sir Bobby to take the mantle?
At the end of the day he plays for us and is playing well. Who gives a shit about anything else?
I thought we'd all come to terms with the fact he's not the brightest?
I thought we'd all come to terms with the fact he's not the brightest?
So not only would he be reluctant to play at CM or on the left wing when circumstances warranted [injuries or the quality/style of an opponent], playing as a more selfless No 10 would be unacceptable too?
Little wonder Sir Alex had begun to grow tired of the situation.
He's putting in the running for now however it would seem that Fergie did indeed have cause to act as he did.
Are there that many strikers at top clubs in Europe that would be willing to just move out of their position without kicking up a fuss? Could you see Falcao, Ibra, Higuain being happy with being shoved into a position where for some reason their team refused to strengthen?
I know it's easy to dislike Rooney, but he has a point. When he was playing as a true CF he was one of the best in the world. He wasn't perfect, but few players are. And he'd earned his time playing as our CF - after putting in years of accommodating Ronaldo, Tevez and so forth. Then Fergie starts moving him all over the shop, buys RVP and he struggles to get a game up front. Then, due to no fault of his own, a massive lack of quality means Fergie then asks him to move even deeper and play in midfield. Where he isn't that comfortable and doesn't want to be.
I think the perception (and I guess Fergie had it too) that Rooney would play anywhere on the pitch and give his all was not entirely true. And I don't see it as that selfish a thing for him to want.
I see it exactly the same as if Jones comes out in another year or two and says he needs to move to start playing at CB. (assuming we keep playing him at RB and in midfield)
When RVP came in Rooney was our best player and one of our most experienced, having captained us on several occasions. It looked like we were all setup to have him as the main man ahead of Kagawa. I can see why he's frustrated - especially when pretty much everyone except Fergie knew the RVP money would have been better spent on a midfielder.
I know it's easy to dislike Rooney, but he has a point. When he was playing as a true CF he was one of the best in the world. He wasn't perfect, but few players are. And he'd earned his time playing as our CF - after putting in years of accommodating Ronaldo, Tevez and so forth. Then Fergie starts moving him all over the shop, buys RVP and he struggles to get a game up front. Then, due to no fault of his own, a massive lack of quality means Fergie then asks him to move even deeper and play in midfield. Where he isn't that comfortable and doesn't want to be.
I think the perception (and I guess Fergie had it too) that Rooney would play anywhere on the pitch and give his all was not entirely true. And I don't see it as that selfish a thing for him to want.
I see it exactly the same as if Jones comes out in another year or two and says he needs to move to start playing at CB. (assuming we keep playing him at RB and in midfield)
When RVP came in Rooney was our best player and one of our most experienced, having captained us on several occasions. It looked like we were all setup to have him as the main man ahead of Kagawa. I can see why he's frustrated - especially when pretty much everyone except Fergie knew the RVP money would have been better spent on a midfielder.
Well if Rooney has continued this grudging willingness to play in certain roles on the pitch and it is not a problem which ended upon SAF's retirement, the issue is one which may affecting the team in the present.
He's playing where he wants now so I don't see the problem, Moyes seems adamant he'll be playing up front from now on.
People love to talk bollocks about our formation and setup and all these reasons we get overrun in midfield when very little of it corresponds to the reality. If you look at Arsenal's and United's last game you'll see Ozil and Rooney took up roughly the same position in relation to the two centre mids and the striker. Both interpret the role differently of course but this idea that we're essentially playing 442 just because Rooney is a "striker" is silly. Rooney still helps out in midfield a lot.
Ozil = #11
Flamini = #20
Arteta = #8
Giroud = #12
Rooney = #10
Carrick = #16
Cleverley = #23
van Persie = #20
No striker plays like this:
Good info, the interpretation of the position from a player who is a striker's perspective and a player who is an attacking midfielder who can play across the withdrawn areas as a 'creator'.
Another glaring piece of information is the instability with Carrick plonked right in the middle of the park on his own. In comparison with the partnership between Flamini who is a hard closing tackler and a tireless clogger (harsh) and Arteta as the playmaking player. Cleverley as the attacking player playing further forward who is probably not suited to a role that deep and Carrick who doesn't directly close opposition and herd play well enough to either do it on his own or with a partner.
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