Wayne Rooney | 2012-14 Performances

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All this talk of sacrifice is a melodramatic for me.

At this level I don't think he's physically quick or sharp enough to play in any position other than centre forward, but in signing RVP this dilemma was always going to happen come the first big game.
 
Can we replace Rooney with RVP's arse-hair clingers? I hear they're the new rage.
 
I think we'd have been much better of playing Valencia instead of Kagawa and allowing Rooney to play through the centre. Valencia would have been better than Rooney defensively and Rooney a lot better than Kagawa going forward. Let's not lose sight of the fact that he still assisted one goal and could have had another assist if RVP had not hit the crossbar.
 
Why's that? It's a real quality to be able to take good set pieces. It doesn't change anything about his overall performance, but it still was an assist.
 
Sacrificing himself for the team by displaying crappy defending? No thanks. I'd rather have someone else who can at least do a half-decent job in that position. If you play poorly in a position, you play poorly; it's not called sacrificing, it's called playing poorly.

I agree that Rooney should've been replaced by someone like Valencia on the flank and Rooney instead should've played in place of Kagawa - at least up front, he can't be excused for his poor performance by 'sacrificing' himself. Kagawa was crap too, so at least Rooney can't do worse up front while we can have someone who is useful at defending on the right flank.
 
Play him strictly in the center with the (less) occasional drift out wide, that's where he's most dangerous, not when flat out playing on the side.

Had a bad game, although hit a good ball from the corner kick which got us a goal, so he did do something nonetheless.

Still, I expect him to have a much better game (personaly) at OT. Fergie will probably take a good long look at the 1st leg and try to figure out how to utilise his players better.

We were clearly 2nd best in the 1st match, and it starts with Rooney, if nothing else I'm positive because I honestly don't expect him to have a repeat of that performance.
 
I'd love to see him get a run of games behind RVP in a 4-2-3-1

OGkush said:
We were clearly 2nd best in the 1st match, and it starts with Rooney
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It starts with being away at Real Madrid. If we played there 10 times we'd be second-best in at least 7 or 8, however well Rooney played. And it's not like we were outplayed.
 
Rooney is the ultimate team player.

How many other players of his quality could you see sticking to a dull defensive job like he did so well last night?
 
He should've played behind Van Persie where he's most effective, and also where he could've occupied Alonso. I'm surprised we didn't go for that.
 
Sandikan said:
Rooney is the ultimate team player.

How many other players of his quality could you see sticking to a dull defensive job like he did so well last night?
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Did we watch the same game? He was at fault for both Coentrao's chances, and didn't close down Di Maria for Ronaldo's goal. Those were the three outstanding chances Madrid had. In what way is that Rooney doing his defensive job well?
 
Plechazunga said:
I'd love to see him get a run of games behind RVP in a 4-2-3-1



It starts with being away at Real Madrid. If we played there 10 times we'd be second-best in at least 7 or 8, however well Rooney played. And it's not like we were outplayed.
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it starts with Rooney, as in I expected more of him (from an attacking point of view, he did a good job on defense, sometimes having to cover for Kagawa as well).

I feel as if the tactics primarily deployed by Fergie were wrong, he put too much focus on trying to stop Ronaldo once he got the ball and not enough focus on stopping the supply to him.
It not only left us looking incompetent at the back at times, it also nullified Rooney's influence to a great extent when we did have the ball.


I know hindsight is a wonderful thing, but if you track back a couple of pages you'll see that I posted something along the lines of how this tie is very much dependant on what Rooney does on the pitch.

Given that Ferguson now knows a bit about what to expect in the 2nd leg, I suspect he'll place Rooney where he belongs (behind RvP), and hopefuly put Welbeck on the left or right for the added pressure, etc.
This would not only allow Rooney to "man-mark" Alonso without sacrificing his positioning (which in turn would mean less Real chances, more United posession), it would also mean he's at his most (or at worst 2nd most) dangerous when going forward as well.


This tie isn't "all about Rooney", if anything the media made it out to be about Ronaldo, however how he's utilised and how he performs will be a major factor in this outcome.
Fairplay to SAF because you really couldn't know what to expect and he gambled by placing Rooney wide, but now that he (hopefully) knows better that should change come the 5th of March.
 
Plechazunga said:
:confused: But it was a really good away performance that got a nice result. We would have won it RVP and Giggs hadn't missed sitters, and Madrid ought to have had a man sent off.
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I'm not saying we were complete and utter crap, and in the end we did get a positive result, but our performance was far from being something to brag about.
We were outclassed and outgunned. Yes RvP and Giggs missed those chances, but how many times did De Gea save us, or how about the early post shot, or the (arguable) penalty? They could have just as easily have won this on another day and we were lucky it ended just 1-1.

With a different game-plan we should get a better result performance wise. In any case I don't expect Ferguson to prepare the same way for the 2nd leg tacticaly.
 
I don't think we were remotely outclassed. We were under the cosh for a while in the first half, in the second we were the better side for a decent period.

It was an entirely creditable, effective, successful away performance at one of the toughest opponents in the world. Of course you can always learn from games and do things better, and I'd always rather see Rooney in his proper position... but the idea that we got it wrong tactically just seems way off to me.
 
Sandikan said:
Rooney is the ultimate team player.

How many other players of his quality could you see sticking to a dull defensive job like he did so well last night?
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They wouldn't be asked too.

Messi / ibrahimovich / ronaldo would never be stuck down in the right back position trying to stop another "world class" player from playing, they will be up the end it counts and putting pressure on their defence.

This so called unselfishness and selflessness isn't good for the team, he is doing a role somebody else is better at, just to fit him on the field. I'm not saying he won't ever be able to do it again, but his abilities are completely wasted there.

Once he has finished running up and down the line he is too fecked to
Actually do anything positive with the ball; he might aswell be benched then swapped with rvp at 70 minutes or played behind him.

in that 4-3-3 shape IMO there is only room for 1 of rvp or Rooney
 
Plechazunga said:
I don't think we were remotely outclassed. We were under the cosh for a while in the first half, in the second we were the better side for a decent period.

It was an entirely creditable, effective, successful away performance at one of the toughest opponents in the world. Of course you can always learn from games and do things better, and I'd always rather see Rooney in his proper position... but the idea that we got it wrong tactically just seems way off to me.
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You don't think we were the 2nd best team on the pitch yesterday?
We were maybe the better team for all of 15-20 minutes tops.

Again, I'm not saying we were crap, but had the match not ended 1-1 and we lost would people still think the performance was creditable, effective and succesfull?
I'm not arguing against the result, I'm just saying it was not a result we 100% fully deserved nor was this kind of performance the way to go at OT and expect to progress.

And I'm not talking about Fergie's tactics being wrong "as a whole", but they were wrong when it came to Rooney, if nothing else the way he performed should give you a hint in that direction (although I know a player's capable of having a bad game regardless where he plays).

We got the 1-1 draw which I'm happy about, but can you honestly say you wouldn't like to see things done a bit differently in regards to Fergie's plans for Rooney this game if nothing else?

I don't mean to be overly critical of anybody, heck I love Ferguson (no homo) and Rooney is my favorite player, just saying I expected more and with good reason.
We could've actualy played "our game" for a couple of minutes at the very least.
 
I've seen us play worse - and more negatively - than that and win. For example, we weren't doing that annoying 'We're one-up, so let's play for the final whistle even though there's ten minutes to go' thing.

And anyway, we were facing a team which included a player who cost over three van Persie's! ;) The most expensively-assembled side ever...Great result, very professional performance.
 
We spent injury time attacking them, and at the full whistle had a collective moan at the referee for making us stop attacking. Barca 08 it wasn't, not by a long shot.
 
Yes Madrid are a great team and you have to respect that.
However it seems that I'm alone when it comes to this: I feel as if we've got a good enough team to impose our own game (atleast we should try at times) and not change and mold it around the competition.
There's a difference between respecting your opponents enough to not take them lightly or take anything for granted and respecting them so much you completely change the way you play in order to try to "numb" their dominance.
Just gives the impression that you're the 2nd best team right from the get-go, not to mention if it doesn't work (keeping your opponent from scoring) you often see a side that slowly crumbles as they're not used to playing this sort of game and they can seem really ineffective.

I'll say it again, there's nothing wrong with being cautious and making a couple changes, it's when things tend to go overboard that I start having a problem with it.

If it had not been for that goal I could have quite easily seen that game go the route of last season's away game to City where Ferguson completely abbandoned his usual tactics and it just felt wrong.

And just so nobody gets the wrong idea, no I'm not being a smartass or Mr. Hindsight, nor am I trying to be overly negative or anything like that (i'm usualy a glass half-full kind of person)
 
The City game was a pathetic capitulation, I agree. But a) we blatently played for the nil-nil, and b) we were roughly as good a side as City.

Yesterday we played to win (cautiously, yes, but intending to score). And player -for-player they're better than us.
 
Plechazunga said:
The City game was a pathetic capitulation, I agree. But a) we blatently played for the nil-nil, and b) we were roughly as good a side as City.

Yesterday we played to win (cautiously, yes, but intending to score). And player -for-player they're better than us.
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IMO the difference between those 2 matches had more to do with the players on the pitch than the tactics.
In both games we were highly defensive and were waiting for a counter or corner to make anything happen, only this time instead of Park & co. we had RvP, and we basicaly scored off of our first chance (and if I'm not mistaken more or less the only clear chance in the 1st half).
 
Plechazunga said:
I don't think we were remotely outclassed. We were under the cosh for a while in the first half, in the second we were the better side for a decent period.

It was an entirely creditable, effective, successful away performance at one of the toughest opponents in the world. Of course you can always learn from games and do things better, and I'd always rather see Rooney in his proper position... but the idea that we got it wrong tactically just seems way off to me.
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100% this.
 
OGkush said:
I don't mean to be overly critical of anybody, heck I love Ferguson (no homo) and Rooney is my favorite player, just saying I expected more and with good reason.
We could've actualy played "our game" for a couple of minutes at the very least.
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Is he? I thought you didn't like him.
 
Plechazunga said:
Yesterday we played to win (cautiously, yes, but intending to score). And player -for-player they're better than us.
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Agreed. We played to our strength, which is counter-attack. The tactic was successful on away games against big(-esh) teams in the league: City, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Spurs. Also, by defending deep, we (almost) successfully nullified Madrid's real strength (i.e. counter-attack).

I can't figure out why people are complaining about our proven tactic.
 
Isotope said:
Agreed. We played to our strength, which is counter-attack. The tactic was successful on away games against big(ish) teams in the league: City, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Spurs. Also, by defending deep, we (almost) successfully nullified Madrid's real strength (i.e. counter-attack).

I can't figure out why people are complaining about our proven tactic.
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I think the bolded part is the key. Madrid aren't as much of a threat when allowed to dominate possession and are forced to play their way through and break teams down. Teams that play high up against them and keep the ball get hit devastatingly on the counter attack and our approach minimised that threat imo. Sitting deep and not pressing high up the pitch like we usually do can be a bit hard to watch because we see Manchester United play attacking football nearly every week but different tactics are needed for certain games and in this one I think we got it spot on by reducing their opportunities to counter attack, yet still having three strikers and an attacking midfielder on the pitch so that we didn't eliminate all of our own threats too.


Adam-Utd said:
They wouldn't be asked too.

Messi / ibrahimovich / ronaldo would never be stuck down in the right back position trying to stop another "world class" player from playing, they will be up the end it counts and putting pressure on their defence.

This so called unselfishness and selflessness isn't good for the team, he is doing a role somebody else is better at, just to fit him on the field. I'm not saying he won't ever be able to do it again, but his abilities are completely wasted there.

Once he has finished running up and down the line he is too fecked to
Actually do anything positive with the ball; he might aswell be benched then swapped with rvp at 70 minutes or played behind him.

in that 4-3-3 shape IMO there is only room for 1 of rvp or Rooney
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I'm not sure it is true that he's too knackered to be creative because in the second half, near the end Rooney played that great ball over the defence to RvP which was very nearly a goal. Had that come off (Robin himself admitted that its the one he should have scored) Rooney would have finished the game with two assists which would have been a good enough return for him. I think it's worth having him on the pitch even if we do sacrifice him a bit. For me in hindsight Kagawa would have been the one to replace with someone like Valencia freeing Rooney up to play less defensively, but regardless Rooney is necessary imo because the of style that we played we often had to switch from defence to attack very quickly and Rooney is one of few players with the ability to contribute a high level defensively (esp for a forward) plus a high level offensively, that's worth having on the pitch even if one gets a little bit blunted at times for the other.
 
Read a lot of papers this morning comparing him to CR when they both joined in 2004 and how Rooney was touted to have more talent, and how Madrid focused their team around CR, United used Rooney to 'do a job' on the wings, while CR is one of the best players in the world, Rooney looks very good but never capable of reaching that top gear of potential he looked so much more destined to fill at an earlier age...


Would you agree or disagree with that?
 
Jaybezia said:
Read a lot of papers this morning comparing him to CR when they both joined in 2004 and how Rooney was touted to have more talent, and how Madrid focused their team around CR, United used Rooney to 'do a job' on the wings, while CR is one of the best players in the world, Rooney looks very good but never capable of reaching that top gear of potential he looked so much more destined to fill at an earlier age...


Would you agree or disagree with that?
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CR looked something really special. The level him and Messi are at is miles above anyone else. If Messi wasn't about then CR would be winning all the awards left right and centre.

Rooney looked like he has potential to be great, even one of the best strikers in the world - and he is. But he's never once looked like being something really special. There's only two that have - Ronaldo and Messi.
 
steeeb said:
CR looked something really special. The level him and Messi are at is miles above anyone else. If Messi wasn't about then CR would be winning all the awards left right and centre.

Rooney looked like he has potential to be great, even one of the best strikers in the world - and he is. But he's never once looked like being something really special. There's only two that have - Ronaldo and Messi.
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That doesn't really answer it though, I appreciate what your saying but are you denying they had a similar or Rooney higher than CR touted potential when they joined in 2004? I don't think there is any argument who turned out the better player... but who looked like they had more potential? It has to be Rooney...
 
Isotope said:
Agreed. We played to our strength, which is counter-attack. The tactic was successful on away games against big(-esh) teams in the league: City, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Spurs. Also, by defending deep, we (almost) successfully nullified Madrid's real strength (i.e. counter-attack).

I can't figure out why people are complaining about our proven tactic.
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This. The tactics we employed were spot on, especially cos they nullified the threat of counter from Madrid. That's my only fear for the return leg at OT, what will our approach be? Actually try to have a go and be a bit open on the counter?

And we probably should've nicked it, with the couple of chances RvP had (I still can't get over his miss). 1-2 would've made it look better, but it was still a perfect performance, and a very mature European one.
 
Jaybezia said:
That doesn't really answer it though, I appreciate what your saying but are you denying they had a similar or Rooney higher than CR touted potential when they joined in 2004? I don't think there is any argument who turned out the better player... but who looked like they had more potential? It has to be Rooney...
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Mainly because he grew chest hair when he was 8 and was a fully grown bloke by 17.
 
steeeb said:
CR looked something really special. The level him and Messi are at is miles above anyone else. If Messi wasn't about then CR would be winning all the awards left right and centre.

Rooney looked like he has potential to be great, even one of the best strikers in the world - and he is. But he's never once looked like being something really special. There's only two that have - Ronaldo and Messi.
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He was compared to Pelé at 18 but you don't think he looked really special? He was compared to George Best by some on here. Ronaldo looked very good in Euro 2004, Rooney looked special.
 
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