his performances up till xmas were dreadful. Why isn't he a striker anymore?
10
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 41
- Goals
- 15
- Assists
- 6
- Yellow cards
- 5
- Status
This.
If I may add, I also dont get the part where people slate him for underachievement. It was the press that compared him to great footballers like Pele, not any manager. If you dislike him because he didn't turn out to be that good, I'm sorry to break this news to you but you will soon start disliking Martial, Rashford, etc. as well. Also, the amount of sacrifices he made to the team should account for something positive. He did exchange a part of his development for benefit for the team
Most managers and players hail Rooney as well. What does that prove?
My post was about how posters personal opinion of Rooney impacts their opinion of his performances.
Your questions are random and unrelated, I think you missed the point.
Rooney was shite before Christmas, as poor a patch as he has ever had for us and his worst season as a striker altogether. However that doesn't stop his performances at 10 or midfield being good after January... Yet a lot of posters would seemingly rather die than even begrudge calling him anything over average in any of those games.
Pointing at one half of a season is a bit silly when his career has spanned 12 years with us, I do think he's in decline and wouldn't play him as a main striker anymore but still a damn good player a level above most. I'd have him somewhere in the starting 11 in our current squad and I bet Mourinho will too, and that's based on merit.
Really no use talking to you about it I think.
you insist criticism is due to him being disliked as a person, how much he is paid, his attitude etc. Anything in return ive said is to do with being on a pitch. 12 years service has nothing to do with a team moving forward, his decline has nothing to do with bias
Bolded is completely untrue, you've literally made that up. What is the point in having a conversation here when your not going to read things properly and then just make shit up.
Again you're not getting the point I've made, you've the second most posts in this thread and 26 of your last 60 posts have been about Wayne Rooney, which really tells the story.
I once again, regret entering this thread.
Have a good night.
goodnight Duafc 
That's a perfectly sound opinion to have. Though I'd wonder if you would apply the same calculating logic if say Martial or Shaw asked for a transfer to a club in the UCL?
I, personally, will always be pissed at 'good' United players that leave.....because I'm petty. If they stay, however, like DDG/Rooney then I can rationalize and accept it's a business and threats to leave is how a player can maximize their earning potential.
id clearly be gutted if Martial/Shaw asked to leave, but they are entitled. Not sure if youre making parallels to Rooney's demands back then?, I think its more how he went about it, compared to DDG who was professional and in being so had most of our blessings to go
thats off the pitch stuff though, I'm mainly concerned how the team functions. id be happy with Rooney around if he played on merit and understood he can be benched. We're not here to serve him, its the other way round
I don't know why you bother reading it if it makes you feel that way. He's a footballer, he's in form and he's playing well for club and country. The rest as far as I am concerned is white noise.
It so obvious that, as I said, i'm surprised it even needs pointing out.
But you keep believing otherwise if it makes you feel better.
Tbf how anyone can say he isnt having a good tournament so is beyond me
I think it's obvious that Rooney critics are way better at predicting his performances over the course of a season than his fans. Look at the thread before the start of last season when his fans ridiculed the prediction that Rooney was going to struggle as a striker and wouldn't score more than 10-12 league goals. His fans predicted 20+ goals. Imagine their reaction if someone had written that Rooney would score 8 league goals! Look at the comments when Rooney hit good form in January. His critics insisted that he had no future as a striker and his fans were pretty sure that his bad performances as a striker were only a matter of poor form and mismanagement. They still thought of Rooney as one of the top 5 strikers in the league!
Generaly, Rooney fans are always quite optimistic whereas the predictions of his critics are much closer to the truth. I argued already 3 years ago that Rooney was declining and Rooney fans didn't want to hear a word of it. The next 3 seasons he was good for 2-3 months per season and during the other months he was bellow average or very poor.
Last edited:
This thread will be funny next season, his usual fans praising the 2-3 good passes he makes in 90 mins, the excuses when he goes through his months of shite(he needs x games to get into form, it's Mourinho, his teammates), the hyperbolic reactions when he manages 2-3 good games (he's back, midfield general, feck the haters)...it's going to be amazing. I just hope Mou doesn't bench him and spoil all the fun
I'm more inclined to want to ignore last season and put it down to a Vangling of the entire attack in search of more possession and more control. Which, ultimately you are on a hiding to nothing trying to keep the ball and play a control based game in the Premier League. It has shown for numerous clubs and managers that it results in more draws, more possession and less shots at goal. Lets see what Mourinho will do with him. I think it is a fascinating prospect in development. Especially considering his form at the moment (add in the back end of last season). Of course, you'd back Jose's pedigree to drop him the second he dips in form. I'm glass half full in that regard, I think Mourinho can tailor the game to suit Rooney's offensive instincts and negate and decline in physicality by building a down hill system that Rooney can play in.
I have to say I am very skeptical of your claim that he was declining three years ago. I mean he was club top scorer for two seasons running and was two goals shy of becoming top goal scorer again. I am not convinced entirely because they were two completely separate regimes and he is a versatility player who can play many positions for the club. There just isn't something right there in my opinion, maybe it is masquerading as "carrying the attack and making something out of absolutely nothing"? Maybe that is an illusion that presents itself as "player is declining".
The new manager absolutely has to get him scoring though if he is to remain in the team. That is a certainty.
Being a top scorer in a realtively bad United team means feck all. Defoe scored plenty for a struggling Sunderland side, doesn't mean he is a top forward or something.
Rooney was pretty average in the second half of the season under Moyes, the same happened in the first season under LVG. He was terrible in the first half of last season as well. Compare his performances from 4-5 years ago to what he's served over the last 3 years and you will see a big difference. It is true that United were struggling under Moyes and LVG but it is also true that Rooney's influence was almost non-existing. Liverpool were struggling before Suarez but he made them compete for the title. After he left them, they have been struggling again. Great players have huge influence on the results of their team. Payet has made Wham good enough to compete for top 6. Rooney doesn't have any significant iinfluence anymore. If anything, his influence has been negative. We won more points per game when he was injured. We'd have finished 7th, 4th, 5th in the last 3 seasons even if he hadn't played a single minute.
It doesn't mean "feck all", it is a team game and the club's footballing match day direction was changed under the last coach. You can't blast your top scorer because he didn't score 60 (or 40 or X) when he only scored 18. You just admit you need to do more to get more goals. Van Gaal's philosophy was never about scoring a lot of goals, we created 11 shots per game and that only went up from around 8 in December.
Mourinho will bring at least some ideas that work in the PL at the very least. If they don't for Rooney, then he'll be out on his rear end to the delight of many. Nobody will be able to dispute that.
I'm surprised you're still blaming LvG for Rooney's lack of goals. Back in December you could maybe do that but since then surely Martial and Rashford have put that argument to bed. Two young lads, barely got their careers off the ground, both finding goals easier to come by than Rooney.
With that in mind I didn't think even the biggest devotees were still blaming LvG/the team.
He got 15 in all competitions, despite missing 3 months of the season through injury, and finishing it in midfield. Granted, he struggled for goals up until January, but after that he actually went on quite a hot streak (the claim is that he basically started ignoring LvG's instructions at this point, and it helped improve his form massively). Had it not been for the injuries, it's quite conceivable he'd have hit 20 goals in all competitions. And this, remember, in a side which struggled for goals in general, whether Rooney was playing or not.
Imagine the reaction if someone had said we'd fail to finish in the top 4, while scoring less goals than West Ham, Southampton, Liverpool and Everton, and managing only one more goal than relegation threatened Sunderland. But that's what happened. We had all the cutting edge of a wet sponge *as a team*. Rooney has to take some blame for that, granted, but in a more attacking system, I think he is actually still capable of a decent goal return.
Maybe. Hard to judge any of our players based on the last 3 years. If he struggles under Mourinho - presuming he'll even play - then yes, us Rooney Raters are running out of excuses fast. But let's just see.
Rooney has been in decline as a footballer since 2010. Ever since he's been hit or miss for large portions of each season. Some good goals and good performances aside, he's largely been a let down and Ferguson clearly had enough towards the end with his reluctance to acknowledge that he deserved to be benched when he was on a bad run.
You can disagree all you want but he's barely been spoken of (in any serious way) as one of the best players in Europe since then.
Dress the argument up as you like but he got 8 league goals. Not 20, not 15. Treble was talking about league goals.
Rooney being dogshit for the entire first half of the season has a lot to do with this. 2 goals and 1 assist in the league with ZERO contributed points is an absolutely terrible return. There was a reason why LVG didn't want to play with Rooney in attack when he returned from injury even though we were in an all-important battle for a CL spot. Rashford was doing better! It's as simple as that. Yougsters like Martial and Rashford put him to shame and showed that his poor performances up front weren't down to the managers (Moyes, LVG) but to him being in decline.
Where would we have finsihed without Rooney over the last 3 seasons? 17th, 14th, 15? No, of course! Acually, his presence made no difference at all. Or it did make a difference maybe? A negative one?
The hater/fan debate is an odd one. On the one hand the "haters" have seen a player they believe has been declining for years and that is no longer anywhere near good enough to be in the first team have two managers build around him and refuse to even sub him when he's often been, in our eyes, the worst player on the pitch. We believe Rooney being on the pitch isn't what's best for the club and are tired of him being given special treatment above and beyond everyone else. What he did for the first years of his time with us is irrelevant now as we don't see him delivering and pandering to him isn't what's best for the club. We don't want what's best for a 30 year old player that's in decline, we want what's best for the club.
Do we fail to give him credit when he does well? Maybe. On the other hand, in our opinion, he has been very poor yet we've watched the media pretend he's brilliant while refusing to acknowledge any of his faults. It's an unbelievable and exasperating situation being on the other end of that. Herrera scored a goal in the FA Cup a couple of seasons ago, he bent it in and an offside Rooney stepped out of the way to avoid interfering with play. All the talk after the match was how Rooney was a genius for moving, no mention of Herrera's finish. The one match he was dropped we had to watch pundit after pundit going on about how the captain, leader and best player needs to be on the pitch and it's insane that he's been dropped as they wilfully ignored him being absolute shite for months. Every few minutes the commentator was going on about needing the leader and best player on the pitch. Has he been better recently? Yes. Does that mean we should now feel it's good enough or that he's the best option going forward? No. As much as his fans feel we won't give him credit for good performances many of us feel he gets far too much praise for anything he does well while what we see as his faults are ignored. Better doesn't mean good enough. There is also a fear that what we feel is the disproportionate praise will again lead to us failing to strengthen in areas because we are going to rely on a player we see as not good enough.
Is his personality a factor? Maybe not for all of us, but I think many of us see what's happened before and it is a factor, but not the way many see it as a black and white "you just don't like him". It's not just the transfer requests, it's how those transfer requests were handled. Handing one in before a CL match, openly questioning the club and implying the players around him weren't up to his standards then letting those standards massively drop while still expecting to be in the team. The fluff stories leaked to the press, the predatory way he tried to destabilise Moyes before he'd even got started in order to get his last contract. We see someone that will happily destabilise the team and manager in order to get what he wants. There's a very real fear that if he is benched then his camp will start leaking stories trying to destabilise the manager. He's far from the only player that's capable of that sort of thing, we've seen Lampard do it to AVB for example. Using mates in the media and leaked stories to pressurise and destabilise the manager enough to get what they want. His fans might feel it's ludicrous and he's a team player. That's not going to change the impression he's given to people less enamoured with him. We see the PR machine at work and it doesn't sit well.
At the end of the day his fans just have to tolerate some people not liking him like they do and the possibility a player they like might get benched. They still get the media praising him and get to watch him every week put in performances they feel are good enough. Outside of some people not wanting him in the team they are getting what they want. The "haters" have to put up with what they see as him getting praise many feel he's not done enough to earn, watching him repeatedly get special treatment that many feel he doesn't deserve, watching him play regardless of form, said form many feel is often so bad it's hurting the team and the very real fear that it's going to continue under Mourinho. Many of us feel that all that is to the detriment of the team and at the end of the day we want what's best for the team. Not believing in a player that you feel has not done enough in the last few years to earn belief isn't a ludicrous state of mind to have.
Do we fail to give him credit when he does well? Maybe. On the other hand, in our opinion, he has been very poor yet we've watched the media pretend he's brilliant while refusing to acknowledge any of his faults. It's an unbelievable and exasperating situation being on the other end of that. Herrera scored a goal in the FA Cup a couple of seasons ago, he bent it in and an offside Rooney stepped out of the way to avoid interfering with play. All the talk after the match was how Rooney was a genius for moving, no mention of Herrera's finish. The one match he was dropped we had to watch pundit after pundit going on about how the captain, leader and best player needs to be on the pitch and it's insane that he's been dropped as they wilfully ignored him being absolute shite for months. Every few minutes the commentator was going on about needing the leader and best player on the pitch. Has he been better recently? Yes. Does that mean we should now feel it's good enough or that he's the best option going forward? No. As much as his fans feel we won't give him credit for good performances many of us feel he gets far too much praise for anything he does well while what we see as his faults are ignored. Better doesn't mean good enough. There is also a fear that what we feel is the disproportionate praise will again lead to us failing to strengthen in areas because we are going to rely on a player we see as not good enough.
Is his personality a factor? Maybe not for all of us, but I think many of us see what's happened before and it is a factor, but not the way many see it as a black and white "you just don't like him". It's not just the transfer requests, it's how those transfer requests were handled. Handing one in before a CL match, openly questioning the club and implying the players around him weren't up to his standards then letting those standards massively drop while still expecting to be in the team. The fluff stories leaked to the press, the predatory way he tried to destabilise Moyes before he'd even got started in order to get his last contract. We see someone that will happily destabilise the team and manager in order to get what he wants. There's a very real fear that if he is benched then his camp will start leaking stories trying to destabilise the manager. He's far from the only player that's capable of that sort of thing, we've seen Lampard do it to AVB for example. Using mates in the media and leaked stories to pressurise and destabilise the manager enough to get what they want. His fans might feel it's ludicrous and he's a team player. That's not going to change the impression he's given to people less enamoured with him. We see the PR machine at work and it doesn't sit well.
At the end of the day his fans just have to tolerate some people not liking him like they do and the possibility a player they like might get benched. They still get the media praising him and get to watch him every week put in performances they feel are good enough. Outside of some people not wanting him in the team they are getting what they want. The "haters" have to put up with what they see as him getting praise many feel he's not done enough to earn, watching him repeatedly get special treatment that many feel he doesn't deserve, watching him play regardless of form, said form many feel is often so bad it's hurting the team and the very real fear that it's going to continue under Mourinho. Many of us feel that all that is to the detriment of the team and at the end of the day we want what's best for the team. Not believing in a player that you feel has not done enough in the last few years to earn belief isn't a ludicrous state of mind to have.
Are there still people blaming LVG for Rooney's woeful first half of last season? Despite the fact that the man delusionally stuck with Rooney when it was obvious we weren't going anywhere playing him week in week out? I still shudder when I try to imagine where we would have finished if Rooney hadn't gotten injured and we were forced to play Rashford.
Edit: nevermind.
Media is just falling short of singing "Are you Iniesta in disguise?"
What a weak ass argument. News flash: we are not one of the top sides in Europe. And don't sell me any of the commercial power sales off trhe pitch bullshit because it's football that does the talking.
He got slated for saying something perfectly reasonable. That's evidence of a very definite agenda - of people looking for any little thing to pick at or jump on.
If you think he's past it and no longer good enough for United, great. There *are* better strikers, No.10s and midfielders out there.
But that's not really the point i'm making, or the attitude towards him i'm criticizing.
Paul Scholes would still be a better midfielder even now than Wayne Rooney though.
Rooney doesn't have the first touch, the guile, the consistency nor the positioning to start regularly in a club that aspires to compete with the big hitters.
Don't know if you noticed, but even when Rooney wasn't in the team, we created very few chances. It basically *was* the system that lead to us being so pedestrian in attack.
Yes I agree with you that there was agenda posting there. But what @clarkydaz said was also extremely valid; what top club in Europe would want Rooney in their midfield? Your answer to which was Manchester United, hence my response. This is the standard to which we should be holding ourselves to.
The last 4 in the recent Champion's League were City, Bayern, Athletico and Real. I will count Barcelona in although they were beaten by Athletico because of their undisputed position as one of the superpowers. Would Rooney walk into any of their midfields? A sensible person would say no.
Do you even read the 'papers regularly? This is a pure myth - bizarro world stuff. I can show you plenty of articles where Rooney is described as in decline, not the player he was, struggling for form, where his place for both Manchester United and England is questioned. He's been getting a bit of praise over the last 10 days or so, granted, but that's because he's been playing well.
To which I always reply: Fergie openly says in Managing My Life that United's refusal to spend big on star players from the continent had stopped the club winning more European Cups/CLs. What is that if not a tacit suggestion that the players he did have weren't good enough? This from *their manager*. He also writes about how he once threatened to resign if he wasn't given a contract that he felt reflected his worth. This is football, a business as much as a game. Players and managers play hardball to get more money. Rooney wasn't the first, and he won't be the last. Big deal.
Hmm. Well you can criticize him for things that haven't happened yet if you want.
I would have no problem with him being benched if the manager deems it best for the club. What I don't like is the blatant lack of objectivity that you get from some of his detractors. Constantly painting him as worse than he actually was/is, constantly attributing the most nefarious motives to him, and generally using him as a scapegoat and whipping boy. It's an unpleasant tendency among all fanbases, including United's (in the past it's also been Cleverley, Young, Carrick, etc).
Last edited:
And yet, oddly, he's been better than Feli, Herrera, Morgan, and arguably an equally declining Michael Carrick and often injured Basti.
So are we just not a big hitter or is our midfield a state.
Don't get me wrong I think buying a top class CM is as big a priority as a RW. But I still imagine Rooney in the pairing or at 10. I genuinely believe he is a better all round midfielder than almost all of our current options.
Just because it's depressing doesn't stop it being true.
The biggest question mark over Rooney in midfield for Utd is his ego, starting and persevering with him when he has his mid season/start of the season slump whilst in midfield will be suicidal, its much easier to carry a badly out of form forward than a midfielder. If he accept this and accepts being rotated in and out of the side based on performances then he can be a useful member of the squad in midfield, if he is, as I suspect not going to accept that then getting rid would be best for both parties. Hopefully he can accept that, because although I think he will struggle against high quality midfields, he does appear to provide something we lack at the moment, the ability to break down teams that have come purely to defend.
Then we have very different opinions on where he is as a midfielder; I'd say he was only better than Fellaini and that really isn't much of a compliment.
If we were playing him at number ten I wouldn't mind much but, when playing deeper, I think you either need positioning or defensive skills (Carrick, Schneiderlin) or technique/mobility (BFS, Herrera).
It seems to be that we're trying to shoehorn him in because of his name rather than what he brings to the team; despite the fact that it will harm us to do so.
He's played just 6 or 7 games in midfield, being good in just half of them and pretty much every of those "good" games he was actually good for about 45 minutes, he could hardly connect good 90 minutes.
For example, against Everton he had periods were he was terrible, they were counter attacking the shit out of us through our midfield and yet he's came out of that game like he had some cracking game, and I many here are giving example of that game like an argument that he can play in midfield, when in reality he was good just on highlights.
Schweinsteiger even in poor form was better than this, we actually looked like we have a midfield that can control the game when Schweinsteiger was there. Herrera of year before was much better than this too, so was even Blind from last year.
I don't rate Fellaini though, nor Schneiderlin, but if he can replicate Southampton's form he is better than Rooney in midfield, but they aren't same position anyway.
Comparing his just best games to our players out of form isn't fair.
Do you watch us regularly? Did you watch us from August-January when he was at his worst and every performance was glossed over or ignored by commentators/pundits while they tried to pretend he was still brilliant? There were times he was giving the ball away and they would literally go silent while refusing to acknowledge he'd made a mistake. It's only recently he's started actually getting any sort of criticism and even then it was noteworthy as "the media finally starting to turn on him". What happens then? A few half decent performances and he's reinvented himself as the key midfielder which they were only too happy to buy into. We're back where we started.
Don't care about other people playing hardball. I'm talking about Wayne Rooney, how he handled it and how he can be expected to handle it again. He lost a certain amount of trust. He demanded better players the first time, then used better players as excuse the second time when he was "angry and confused" at Moyes saying RVP was his best striker. He has shown he's not above destabilising the team/manager to further his own ends and again that has lost him trust. Does it apply to other players? Yes. But we are talking about Rooney specifically and it's one of several factors for some fans feeling he is detrimental to Manchester United.
I used his past behaviour when not getting what he wants to point out why people might be reluctant to trust him to handle not getting what he wants any better in the future.
Why do you care? If his detractors are so wrong about him then it shouldn't bother you. You're not going to change anyone's mind on him at this point. My post was to highlight some of the reasons why a lot of his detractors are frustrated with the situation and venting. His fans really shouldn't be bothered as they are getting what they want. If you don't like seeing him criticised then don't read it, you're not going to force people to stop criticising him because you feel it's unfair.
I've probably seriously fecked up the formatting of this and I'm dreading hitting post reply.
This is just where we will always differ (until he maybe gets even worse!)
I think Rooney has always shown great defensive capabilities, that has been exhibited as a striker, 10, left midfielder and CM, and I don't just mean the one gut busting run back to left back to put in a slide tackle or a goal line clearance, I think he is very hardworking and tactically astute and pretty much always has been. So I think he gives only slightly less protection than Carrick/Morgan (on their good days) certainly more than the statuesque elbower and Hererra, whom I'm a big fan of.
Similarly whilst not as mobile as he was he still offers enough for me, easily capable of playing box to box. In terms of technique I think only Carrick has a better passing range actually going forward, Hererra plays a different way, very pass and move which I love but unfortunately only really Mata seems to be on his wavelength in that regard and it just never really works for him.
I think from Midfield Rooney gives more attacking threat than Basti, both in his passing and his arrivals in the box, though i agree Basti is more experienced in really dictating a game.
I think we lack a first choice midfield, they all do little bits, but not others so you have to pick and choose and it's all debatable, for me out of the 4 or 5 of them Rooney combines most of the qualities I want in a CM though does lack a few, however it's worth bearing in mind he's probably only played 20-30 games there if even. Testament to his overall quality and versatility.
Still want a CM bought and think Rooney should be at 10, and shouldn't be on the pitch if he's playing like he did the first half of the season.
This sounds right, he must accept being treated just like any other player based on form not status (captain privilages).
What's the worst is that, atm, he looks better option in midfield than the 'real' midfielders Herrera, Bastian, Morgan who all were shocking last year. But I really hope it's just down to LVGs rigid system, no their true ability.
Rooney still has a role to play within this team, but not then main one like he's used to and the sooner he accepts that the better for all parties involved!
If we're picking out the best performance seen in midfield from individual games and forgetting about consistency or fitness, then BFS was comfortably the highest quality performer last season. He had feck all competition mind. Simply strolling around against Liverpool at Old Trafford early on in the season was as good as any midfielder did all season under Van Gaal.
Rooney came in to midfield near the end when Van Gaal had practically gave up enforcing his system and things started loosening up.
Rooney came in to midfield near the end when Van Gaal had practically gave up enforcing his system and things started loosening up.
- Status