true.
10
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true.
? Did he say that? Did you listen to it or just read it somewhere?
Rooney has been annoying me for a while now with his below-par performances, but that supposed statement by Scholes is wrong on so many levels. If he really said that then he should retire immediately as a pundit. Noone in his right mind could compare Rooney's importance to us especially until 2010/11 to what Kagawa did here in 2 years!
I was merely providing an example of what another poster said. That gif wasn't meant to sum up Rooney's entire performances. I can't believe you can see nothing wrong with that gif anyways. Look at all the space to his left. He has two options. Run at the players and try to pass it to either Di Maria or RVP provided they make runs or he can do a simple 1-2 with Di Maria. Why do you think Di Maria ran into that space after the pass?
Look at all that space. I'm sure he couldn't do anything there.
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I was merely providing an example of what another poster said. That gif wasn't meant to sum up Rooney's entire performances. I can't believe you can see nothing wrong with that gif anyways. Look at all the space to his left. He has two options. Run at the players and try to pass it to either Di Maria or RVP provided they make runs or he can do a simple 1-2 with Di Maria. Why do you think Di Maria ran into that space after the pass?
Look at all that space. I'm sure he couldn't do anything there.
This is when he didn't play the give and go Di Maria asked to right ? It infuriated it me but at the same time I realized that type of football isn't natural to Wayne. He prefers the long diagonals to his buddy Valencia.
So the problem is Wayne and therefore we need to stop playing him.
I firmly believe that 3-5-2 should be put to be and move to things like 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 with one striker up top.
It's a perfectly valid point, just look at any of the player performance threads from last season, players like kagawa and chich getting pelters for not coming into the team and having an immediate impact, usually from the exact same posters who have spent the last ten years defending Rooney every single season when he goes through his yearly shit spell saying he needs games to find form. If that can be applied to one player why is it not fair to say it about another?
It's not a valid point though. Kagawa hasn't done anything to warrant starting games, nothing at all. If the only argument for him starting is that the rest are shite then you know it's a poor argument. Rooney himself has played loads and loads of games out of position so it's not like Kagawa is some sort of exception.
Oh don't get me wrong, Rooney has deteriorated so much in the last 2-3 years (which surprisingly his fanbois can't admit) that I couldn't care less if he left today. Those same fanbois are blaming Mata all the time, who has only been here for 6 months. Whereas Rooney over the last few years has been an integral part of some of the worst football we have been playing, which started and never improved way before there were even any signs of Mata joining us. Not to mention Rooney should be at his absolute peak with 29, but all he is for years now is a shadow of the player he once was. And they call him "creative"!!
And yes, Scholes can say that Rooney needs a run of games to get into form, so why not Kagawa. But with his pointless statement mentioning his 10 years he seems to question his entire time or form during all those years with us. And everyone knows how integral he was in his early years for us. It's a bit like saying "Pogba just needed a run of games in the first team, Scholes got 20 years".
I just find his statement a bit sad, even as someone who can see all of Rooney's faults and would be extremely happy if we replaced him with a far better striker within a minute.
It's the same. It's stupid, that's why I think it's fake. Noone verified it anyway.
If Scholes said that (which he probably didn't) I can only assume he didn't catch Rooney's debut.
I was merely providing an example of what another poster said. That gif wasn't meant to sum up Rooney's entire performances. I can't believe you can see nothing wrong with that gif anyways. Look at all the space to his left. He has two options. Run at the players and try to pass it to either Di Maria or RVP provided they make runs or he can do a simple 1-2 with Di Maria. Why do you think Di Maria ran into that space after the pass?
Look at all that space. I'm sure he couldn't do anything there.
Run into the exact same space Di Maria is running into? Yeah, that makes sense.
Because Di Maria's marker tracked his run perfectly. That was the obvious pass but once he'd realised it wasn't on, there wasn't much else to do other than what he did. Seriously, that gif is a really strange 2 or 3 seconds to use as criticism.
Pretty sure Di Maria has the pace and the close control to get away from him.
Either that or Rooney turns and goes at the defence.
Basically anything other than what he actually did which gave Burnley all the time in the world to set up. Forwards are supposed to go forward and be positive, Rooney went backwards.
I don't know, if the ball has the perfect weight then Di Maria gets to it before his marker do doubt. Let's just forget that specific moment though, in general Rooney slowed things down by taking too many touches after his first touch was not good enough. He's too brainwashed to go wide all the time. There is very little variety to his play
I can't believe people are criticising him based on that GIF 
I can't believe people are criticising him based on that GIF
When it's obvious what could be done in that situation, why can't we criticse him?
I could sit and watch the the weekends games, and probably give you countless GIFs like that from other 'top' players.
Shorn of any context, they are utterly pointless, and it's hard not to see an axe being ground here.
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You certainly could. It's not a witch hunt of Rooney, we'd be saying the same thing if someone else had done the same thing he did.
The context was we were attacking, played the ball forward, Rooney failed to turn on it and take the positive approach by either running at defenders or laying in Di Maria/RVP and went backwards allowing Burnley to get back into place. Football games are won on decisions like that.
So no-one else for United made any - in your opinion - poor attacking decisions on Saturday? Because if they had, you'd be GIF-ing them in all the respective threads, right?
Seeing as how those GIFs aren't there, I can only presume the rest of the team must have been flawless (although that's not quite how I remember it).
The only two players in the squad who would, no doubts whatsoever, have attempted to play Di Maria in first time are Welbeck and Herrera. Maybe Clverley at a push.
van Persie would have slowed things down; Kagawa would have done what Rooney did - but even slower, and probably even a pass backwards to Fletcher instead of even sideways; Mata may have turned towards goal, but may have done the same as Rooney too.
It's not just a Rooney problem. Its a whole team problem.
Rooney does it because of his erratic first touch, Mata and Kagawa are too casual, van Persie just slows things down even though he has the ability to pull that pass off. Either way, it's the type of pass that creates great positions, so it's something we need to start doing more of. Dortmund, Bayern and Arsenal do loads of it.
van Persie would have slowed things down; Kagawa would have done what Rooney did - but even slower, and probably even a pass backwards to Fletcher instead of even sideways; Mata may have turned towards goal, but may have done the same as Rooney too.
It's not just a Rooney problem. Its a whole team problem.
Rooney does it because of his erratic first touch, Mata and Kagawa are too casual, van Persie just slows things down even though he has the ability to pull that pass off. Either way, it's the type of pass that creates great positions, so it's something we need to start doing more of. Dortmund, Bayern and Arsenal do loads of it.
If the gifs were posted then we could talk about them. Fact is, this one was and it highlighted bad play.
This is the Rooney after all, what did you expect ?
This is why a 3 second GIF shorn of any context is pretty much useless in assessing a player's performance.
We don't even know if Welbeck or Herrera would have been stood in that position on the pitch to start with. We don't know what they would have attempted if they had been. There are just so many variables as to make the exercise of judging performance based on one GIF futile.
What we do know, working from a large sample size, is that the things Rooney does on a football pitch, the decisions he takes, are more likely to lead to goals than the decisions Kagawa (in his Utd guise), Welbeck and Cleverley make. That's a big reason why he always has better combined scoring, assist and key pass rates than the others do.
In that one, isolated incident, maybe they'd have done better than Rooney.
Even *if* that's the case, that doesn't mean they are therefore better players, or more deserving of a place in the team. Because they have weaknesses as well - and we don't need silly GIFS to demonstrate that - which on balance make them less effective players than Rooney is.
What we might lose by playing Rooney, we gain more in other aspects.
So what say y'all to this theory?
That the signings of Falcao, Di Maria and Herrera will actually take the pressure off Rooney somewhat.
In four of the five seasons since Ronaldo left, he's been very much regarded as the 'main man'. Our best player, and the guy we looked at to inspire us to success.
And I wonder if Rooney has felt that burden somewhat, with his apparent desire to want to score the goals, create the goals, help out in midfield, defend, write the theme tune, and sing the theme tune.
Now he's just another very good attacking player among the multitude. The pressure isn't *all* on him to perform. He'll be allowed to have an off game and someone else will step up (just as he might step up when they have an off game).
The best case scenario is that this unshackles him - 'let it fly!' as LvG said - and we see a happy, flowing, exciting Wayne Rooney, rather than the frustrated looking Wayne Rooney that's been seen a bit in recent seasons.
Or on the other hand, will these new players ultimately push him out of the team, as his United career ends not with a bang, but a whimper?
That the signings of Falcao, Di Maria and Herrera will actually take the pressure off Rooney somewhat.
In four of the five seasons since Ronaldo left, he's been very much regarded as the 'main man'. Our best player, and the guy we looked at to inspire us to success.
And I wonder if Rooney has felt that burden somewhat, with his apparent desire to want to score the goals, create the goals, help out in midfield, defend, write the theme tune, and sing the theme tune.
Now he's just another very good attacking player among the multitude. The pressure isn't *all* on him to perform. He'll be allowed to have an off game and someone else will step up (just as he might step up when they have an off game).
The best case scenario is that this unshackles him - 'let it fly!' as LvG said - and we see a happy, flowing, exciting Wayne Rooney, rather than the frustrated looking Wayne Rooney that's been seen a bit in recent seasons.
Or on the other hand, will these new players ultimately push him out of the team, as his United career ends not with a bang, but a whimper?
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I think it could well bring the best out of him, hopefully anyway. It could also put his nose out of joint and make him angry and confused
Having seen his stats on that Sky graphic yesterday, I'm willing to believe Rooney and Falcao can form a lovely partnership.
I worry that that player has long gone and we'll never see him back to tell you the truth. Genuinely can't remember the last time he went at defenders really.
It's lack of fitness. Start of last season he was ace because he looked fit, got injured and came back lethargic and looking overweight. Still offers goals and quality though like that goal against West Ham.
I'd say it's Rooney himself who most regards him as "the main man", and that's part of the problem; an ego that outweighs his ability. There's far too much time given to how to fit him in where he wants to play — usually at the expense of others — when it should just be conceded that he's not good enough to warrant special treatment. I'd hoped LVG would not succumb to reputations, but seemingly he has with Rooney as I get that same "undroppable" vibe I had with Moyes.
Rooney's such an amazingly talented player, potentially I think he is a bit better than Falcao. He's only 4 or 5 months older than Radamel, who is an insanely talented footballer too. They both have some of their best years ahead of them and I'm pretty sure we will see spectacular moments from both.
Rooney has never really struck a proper partnership with any striker. probably only with Saha. People might say tevez but that lasted only a handful of games before he was played more on the left. Will be interesting to see how it goes with falcao.
Spot on, and the reason I would have preferred Rooney or RVP for that matter, to be offloaded, rather than Welbeck at the expense of bringing in Falcao. In a few years Welbeck will be coming into his prime whereas Rooney will have just deteriorated further. I firmly believe that Welbeck's all round game, except for his finishing/long range shooting is already superior to Rooney and once he can improve those two aspects of his game I believe he will have a lot more to offer to the team. As you said, technically he should be in his peak now but he looks like a shadow of his former self. The amount of times he has slowed up our build up play in the last 3 games, the gif above being a great example, is cringe-worthy. I wish I would be proven wrong too, because I loved the old Rooney. I also believe Welbeck would partner Falcao better than either Rooney or RVP will.
I would say that on balance, the opposite has been true of Rooney's career at United. In that it's *him* who's been played out of position frequently to accommodate other plays, or fill gaps.
Has he got a strange voodoo hold over managers, do you think, including LvG? Or might it just be that he remains a much better player than some of you will currently give him credit for, and is picked on merit?
You make a good point and it's hard to argue with. However, if Rooney keeps performing as he has in these past three games, in which he's been just as bad as players who are constantly criticized like Fletcher, Young and Valencia I don't see LVG keeping him in the starting line up for long.
No it doesn't but a quick 1-2 there or a pass to RVP would have made a lot of sense.
He's on the decline, get rid of him so that we're off his stupid wages.
If we go by the first few games where he had no support, then we may as well throw away everybody. I think let's view him with better support before making any quick decisions.
So what has Falcao done to warrant starting any games then?
Point is we bought him because of his quality performances as a 10 for dortmund, so we should have at least played him there for a few games consistently.
I don't think Fergie done much wrong with him given his injuries, but Moyes treatment of him (not even playing him when both Rooney and RVP were injured was a bit of a joke really)
He has been since 2011/2012 since then he hasnt been top class. Not as a striker nor as a #10, 30 league goals since 2011/2012.. Embarassing.
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