Indeed. Especially when one's using specific examples from the game, and other just his opinion.
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Indeed. Especially when one's using specific examples from the game, and other just his opinion.
Quality player and like many of the Utd leg before him, won't realise how good he was until he's not here anymore..
Examples of him being tactically good? Well I can take examples of Hart's game against Barcelona and de Gea's game against Villa and say that Hart is better keeper. Where are the examples of Rooney being good at something else yesterday, like being good on the ball, something that's actually very important for attacking players? I don't remember anyone saying he was poor tactically yesterday, everyone who said he had a bad game said that his hold up play and some other important things were missing, and rightfully so. Most of our players were great at everything yesterday, great with the ball and excellent tactically, yet Rooney is the only one being praised by Neville for some/known reason even though he was probably one of our worst players in general yesterday.
I know its a while off, but replacing Rooney in a few years time will be one hell of a challenge. Player of his quality, same determination and grit, energy.. All on the forward line - combined with the passion of playing for United etc
You'll find yourself in a minority here. Most on here seem to think he's a pub footballer who's somehow scored 230 goals for us and should be replaced sooner rather than later.
Have faith in Wilson.
I can honestly see us giving him 1 year rolling contracts til he's 35 like Carrick because we're still waiting to find the perfect replacement. As much as Rooney has had his issues with the club in Fergies days, its obvious to see he loves playing for the club and his quality is so clear to see. Especially of late with our much improved performances. Rooney will always have the odd off game - but he plays for the shirt more then anybody and replacing a player combined with his quality will be hard.
To replace Wayne Rooney...?
No disrespect to Wilson, and I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see in him the same brilliance that Rooney had as a 19 or 20 year old.
No doubt, but Rooney was already scoring hatricks for United at his age. He will be a legend in 30 years time. Wilson would do well to reach 50% of what Rooney has achieved with us.
Anyone who would start falcao over Rooney is so deluded they should be sent to Rawk, they would for right in
I wonder if the Daily Mail pay Neville for stealing his MNF comments for their own website hits.Neville on Rooney's performance Vs City:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...e-barely-touching-ball-says-Gary-Neville.html
But Rooneys Inverse Fan Club know better.
I'm gonna, cos I'm a petty person!
Ah!
Yeah I remember us both agreeing on here. People are so focused on his 'touch', it's become an incredibly boring leitmotiv, and it was really enjoyable to watch Neville analyze the subtleties of his game. 'Silent domination' was an excellent description of it.
Agreed. Neville's gone completely overboard there. Most of the stuff that Rooney's doing now is something that van Persie had already been doing for van Gaal before he'd even came here and that's carried on throughout this season. It is strange that he got absolutely no credit for that. I really don't think it's ludicrous at all to suggest van Persie could perform similarly well in this team now everyone else has started to understand their role. Rooney obviously offers a level of mobility and energy that van Persie doesn't have in him any more but the positioning, movement, hold-up play and all-round understanding of the role is something van Persie is still very, very good at, and his more intelligent use of the ball compensates for his lack of mobility.
I think Rooney's been very important in the past couple of months and don't think his form warrants him being dropped at all but I also don't think there'd be a significant drop-off if van Persie was brought in. Our #9 this season has been asked to play a very selfless role and that is true of Falcao, Rooney and van Persie. They've genuinely had to feed on very few chances, they've had to do a lot of hard running and they've been asked to be more disciplined than any of our strikers in a long, long time. It's the kind of thing that we saw from our strikers in the odd big game where they were asked to be the focal point, the dummy runner and first line of defence and very little else, but this season they've been doing it consistently. They all could have played better individually, no doubt, but I think they've been given very little credit for a very tough role - easily the toughest role in the team, IMO.
Not having this by Neville what a lot of rubbish. Yes Rooney occupied the centre backs and held a more disciplined position but his touch has been dreadful for the last few games. I'm a big Rooney fan but this is a case for me of the analysis (Neville) taking this to far to suit his narrative.
Neville in continuing his pub level and ridiculously pro England players commentary shocker.
To be fair to Neville - he never specifically said that he thought Rooney had a good game, what he said was a) He's impressed that LVG had been able to manage someone like Rooney to follow his tactical approach and b) that due to how he operated EXACTLY how he was meant too tactically, that LVG would have loved his performance - which, to be fair, isn't an outlandish thing to think at all, as LVG bloody loves it when people do what he's told them to do.
If Neville said that Rooney played a disciplined game but needs to show more quality as an attacker, it would've been a fair assessment. Like he typically does with England players, he went absurdly overboard with his praise. Doing your job tactically is the minimum expectation for a player at the level we aspire to compete at in the future.
Our striker doing what he's told to do is nothing new, though. What he's presented there as "Rooney's best performance in a United shirt" under LvG - from LvG's perspective - is something that all three of our strikers have done before and it's barely warranted a mention.
I suppose it has more meaning/looks more "impressive" when everything around him is also working as it should - with Mata/Young drifting wide and Herrera and Fellaini pulling into spaces on their sides of the pitch. I agree that it's a bit OTT, but I think he's probably got a point that LVG was very happy with his performance whilst the rest of us thought he wasn't great.
To be fair to Neville again, I seem to remember him doing a peice on RVP earlier this season that he was making intelligent runs and looking for the ball in good spaces, but just not getting it... I may have totally made that up mind you.
Yes, that was my point from the beginning, I never said Rooney should be dropped for Falcao or van Persie, I just said I think they would be capable of playing better than how Rooney played over the last three games and they already did. Hell, I even said I don't see any point in starting Falcao at all anymore in first place, but people see what they want to see.
Btw, cheers for the rest of the post, it's easier when you have someone who is seen as someone who likes Rooney agreeing with you, because I couldn't believe people were actually falling for Neville's "Rooney's best game for Manchester United", because frankly, it's stupid, being tactically good doesn't mean you had a great game.
Nonsense. RvP and Falcao have never put in a shift like that under Van Gaal. Wilson might have matched the effort but wouldn't have caused the opposition as many problems on the ball.
RVP cannot put in a shift like Rooney though. The way continuously harasses the CBs and closes them down isn't something I can see RVP do.
I don't agree at all. I think that has more to do with appearances than anything else to be honest. Van Persie worked very hard in most of his games and I'm amazed anyone would criticise Falcao's work-rate. He was compared to Forlan and Tevez because of his workrate at various points. Perhaps he's gone into his shell a bit in recent times as he's lost all kind of self-belief, but there's absolutely no doubt in my mind Falcao worked every bit as hard at the start of his United career. Others seemed to agree at the time:
Since then opinions on Falcao have soured and his self-belief has hit rock bottom so all of that is quite easily forgotten, but I do think Falcao in many games this season worked as hard and as selflessly as Rooney did. He never looked fully fit but he worked his balls off.
Is there any way we can quantitatively measure the work-rate of our three strikers? I'd be very, very surprised if Rooney yesterday covered more ground than the other two at any other point this season. I didn't think van Persie's performance against Chelsea this year was any less disciplined, effective or hard-working than Rooney's against City, for example.
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Also, can we stop this 'Rooney has spent most of the season in midfield' thing? It was the same thing unobjective people used in the Ronaldo debate, claiming he had spent years as some sort of left-winger. At a push, he started about 10-15 big games on the left when Ronaldo was here, and that's probably being generous - and off the top of my head, has probably started about 7 or 8 games max in central midfield this season.
Other than that, both while Ronaldo was here and this season, he has played as either the 9 or 10.*
*My figures have not been researched and will probably be miles off now!
Other than that, both while Ronaldo was here and this season, he has played as either the 9 or 10.*
*My figures have not been researched and will probably be miles off now!
Oxymoron?
Even if RvP and Falcao covered, blade for blade, the exact same bits of the pitch as Rooney did on Sunday they would be less effective because they're considerably slower across the ground.
Not to mention that he's a very smart, well-rounded footballer who knows which runs to make and when to make them. When we're attacking and when we're defending. That's why three different managers have been willing to play him in such a wide variety of different roles, something no other striker in our squad has previously shown themselves capable of.
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So, limiting Rooney's involvement deeper on the pitch mean we play better as a team? I've been saying that for years.
in one of the recent games he was playing midfield, while we were all saying he was terrible the opposing manager (cant remember who it was) admitted Rooney's movement was causing them all kinds of problems
Persie certainly did away to Southampton. And for the surrounding period when he was 'back'. He worked his socks off at St. Mary's, won so many 50/50s, and held the ball up well under a battering from the centre-halves.
Rooney had to come deeper because we were worse as a team if he didn't because our midfield and organization was rubbish in comparison to what it is now.
I was impressed by Rooney's contribution on Sunday, and, at the end of the game, I wanted to point out to my mates how he gave such an understated, but brilliant performance.
Might have been a tad too inebriated though; ended up struggling to find the right words, and only mumbled something about "fecking Cavani".
Might have been a tad too inebriated though; ended up struggling to find the right words, and only mumbled something about "fecking Cavani".
That Southampton performance stands out as a shining light in a sea of mediocrity, going back 18 months or so. Van Persie did play very well in that game and got unanimous praise for doing so. I guess the point being made here is that Rooney can be below par (as he was on Sunday) yet still put in an incredibly hard-working and effective performance. When Van Persie isn't on his game he's a passenger. Just seems to stop trying.
I wouldn't think so. The intensity of Rooney's pressing is a little bit higher, sure, but the analysis Neville did showed most of Rooney's work was not done at sprinting pace or anywhere near it. It was just about understanding your role, where to be at all at times and having the discipline to stick to it. Van Persie has done that very well all season. He's just lacked the finishing touch and quality on the ball to take it from being a good #9 performance to a great one. The same is true of Rooney at the weekend.
Honestly, I'm surprised that so few others agree that absolutely everything he said about Rooney there is everything that van Persie has done both this year and at the World Cup. The same is true of your description of Rooney there - the only difference being that versatility, but this role requires the least versatility of any attacker. You're forced to stay as the focal point of the attack, occupy the two centre backs, bring others into play and stretch the defence. Van Persie'sdone that all season. That's been the reason he's been a van Gaal favourite.
As AN said earlier, Neville actually did a very similar piece of analysis for van Persie against the very same opponent. All that stuff that he showed earlier for Rooney - occupying Kompany to create space for Fellaini, pushing the centre backs further and further back to create space for the midfield runners - it's right there with van Persie too, as you can see in the clips. That is what he's done all season. The service he was receiving was just not good enough, and that's something that Neville acknowledged at the time during his only criticism. You could quite easily find a clip showing Rooney doing exactly the same thing on Sunday. The difference is the narrative. He's playing up to the United euphoria and praising England's talisman.
They're doing the same thing. It's just Rooney's being utilised better because we're playing better. The biggest part of that is we now have Carrick and Herrera in there too and they just use the ball much, much better going forward. Carrick and van Persie have a great partnership but have barely had a chance this season to play together, and with Herrera now added into the mix and our entire team in sync it's hardly a leap to say that van Persie would be playing much better.
Perhaps it's true that Rooney is the better number #9 when we're not playing well but now that we are playing well, I firmly believe van Persie will fit in very nicely.
This. I feel like people are grasping at straws here. Rooney is out best striker hands down, and i would not switch him for any of our other strikers currently, but claiming he had "a great game" vs City seems absurd to me. His touch was heavy and he looked like he was on the back foot pretty much the whole game. He should start vs Chelsea this weekend, but i hope he delivers more than he did on Sunday
Good post, and I agree. Rooney also has the benefit of having a lot more room to move into. I don't think we've played RvP as a sole #9 this season, without having Rooney or Falcao up beside him, thereby limiting the space he can move into. RvP in the current set up would do really well, imo.
I also think he'd hold the ball up better, in the final third.
While I agree that this type of role will fit RVP better, I'm not really convinced that he has the fitness left in him anymore to make him a viable option. That lone role is a hugely demanding one that involves making run after run that no-one ever sees and spending the whole game being double teamed by the opposition centre backs. If he can show he does have the vitality left in him to keep troubling centre backs for 90 minutes for an extended run of games then there's a debate to be had, but he's looked very heavy legged to me for a lot of this season.
He's looked a shadow of his usual self. Heavy legged but also seeming to lack the strength (or desire?) for any of the physical battles. Far too easily shrugged off the ball and not winning near enough of his share of headers.
Agreed. I said this is another thread I think but at least two of our recent goals, one against Villa and the winner at Newcastle, we simply would not have scored had it been RvP playing instead of Rooney. He just does not press and harry defenders like that. High pressing is a very important tactic in the modern game, both offensively and defensively, and Rooney does it very well.
I must concede that I think Rooney has become the best option for us now. While I think Persie is the better and more talented individual, Rooney bridges the gap, and then some, with his physical superiority.
Ultimately, I still think we need a better contribution than any of our strikers give us to take the step to being one of the most dangerous sides in Europe. A striker who can go on a scoring run, frighten defenders, and win games on their own would be fantastic. Heaven knows who though!
Ultimately, I still think we need a better contribution than any of our strikers give us to take the step to being one of the most dangerous sides in Europe. A striker who can go on a scoring run, frighten defenders, and win games on their own would be fantastic. Heaven knows who though!
We need Rooney in the team this season (as a striker), we don't need him to be a star though, don't think he is capable of being a star anymore.
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