@NessunDorma and others.
I'm not going to praise Rooney for a poor midfield performance. Like I said earlier, some of the blame lies with LvG for playing him there, because he isn't the standard required. But some of you Rooney lovers are so blinded that you'll applaud him running around aimlessly for 90 min chasing down long a ball hoofed to the corner flag because it shows 'heart' or 'desire'. This place was full of them after the Arsenal game last year when we won 1-0. It's pathetic. One of your best players being 'back to his best' because he ran around a lot red faced. Is that what it's come to? We're paying a player £300k a week to run around aimlessly, and then we'll applaud him for doing so. One of our best players, on the highest wage.
When Rooney storms up and down berating an already fragile defence against Leicester that's 'good captain material'? Some people here were even defending him as it was his mistake that led to the goal, that led to him shouting at the defence, saying he made that mistake because of xyz. it's just pathetic. He is not a good captain. Him pacing up and down shouting like a bloody baboon, he did it again in another game can't remember against who, but you don't do that on the pitch. Look at Steven G after his pitch with his 'speech' after the City result. It damaged the team. This type of behaviour, in public, damages the team. Why do you think Fergie was so adamant to not let that video get out by Keane? Humiliating a player will never result in a positive outcome. That kind of remonstrating should be done behind closed doors. It's so obvious, but instead, you guys will clap your hands, and say 'he loves United now'. Give me a break. Keane gave players a hard time, but he did it in a much, much, more subtle way. And he led by example. How many average/poor performances did you see from Keane? I said it before, and I'll say it again, Rooney is not even 1% the captain Keane was.
And, yes you can post stats about 94% pass completion and most touches of the ball, but did it hurt the opposition? Did it show? I mean, by all means, if he takes that many touches and has that pass completion rate, and we win 5-0, I'll praise the guy. But it did nothing for us. Absolutely nothing. He's not a good CM. He shows for the ball, and he can pass but that's it. He had a couple of good moments, yesterday, but I'm not going to settle for 1 maybe 2 moments every couple of games. His fitness isn't even that good. He was so obviously tired after the 70 min mark in yesterday's game, and he's only been playing 1 game a week. He's just a slightly better Cleverley as CM.
Anyway, I'm not arguing this with you anymore. By all means, clap him for running around and shouting at Tyler Blackett, and praise him when he passes the ball out wide to Valencia. It just shows the level he's dropped from when he first joined us if we're going to accept that as a sign that he's on top form.
10
Just griping about his constant need to play that cross field ball. I agree that Valencia doesn't do anything with them. But that's not the only problem with the diagonal. As I said before, it's something so predictable from him; a slow floated ball that does nothing to help our play in terms of tempo and creativity. Our overall play suffers because of this. You don't see Ander / Afro / Blind / ADM / Carrick pulling this shit off when they start in a diamond and hence the fluidity of our play.
