Rooney was never the most professional of players, but that adds to his charm.
Bloke is top scorer of England and Man United and yet we all feel he could have been more.
Wayne Rooney Appreciation Thread
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Bloke is top scorer of England and Man United and yet we all feel he could have been more.
I don't know what value that sentence has when he was predestined to only be compared with greats and all-timers from practically the moment he made a name for himself. The bold was a given by default.
In the last 20 years, you can count on your hands (perhaps hand) how many players had a greater weight of expectation to become something outrageously good.
Good post, but you're missing one big element as to why Rooney was not the perfect pro - mental health/resilience. He had a very typical council estate upbringing, he was drinking and have cigs since eleven. Fame hit him instantly at 16, and by 18 he was the nation's talisman. He had some embarrassing escapades and turbulence in his relationship that were front page news. His coping method was alcohol. In his early 20s this barely seemed to have a detrimental effect, but over time it takes a toll on an athletes performance.
I put 'not looking after himself,' which was intended to cover all the mischief and mishaps.
He's given insight into how much worse it was than was assumed at the time on The Overlap.
It wasn’t just drink as he'd come back to camp for preseason overweight with massive amounts of catch-up to do, which also puts a toll on the body.
Even if he has some bizarre accelerant in him that has him ageing well beyond his years now, as a footballer he really was blessed with phenomenal genes. Given how we now know just how much he was abusing his body, the output and contribution to games and campaigns as a whole he had are even more incredible. Smoking, drinking and overweight postseason. Usually we hear of a lane and one vice from the 3 being awful for a footballer, and Wayne was hitting all three. I don't know of anyone else of that level with the full house!
Rooney is in every possible way a healthier and better person than Cristiano Ronaldo.
What a photo.
From the young lad in T90s to the old man in slippers like Puma Kings.
That's what really shows his age here.
I loved George he could pass the ball long with great accuracy, tackle and shoot. He is remembered for his dribbling but my god he was far more a player than that, he would be my favourite player by a country mile if it weren’t for the way he blotted his copy book with the club and Sir Matt.All are United legends, but Giggs and Scholes played in the most winning period, among players with the most games, brought up by United and played for United throughout their careers. In my eyes, they are one step above Best, Beckham and Rooney.
Maybe you question why I put Best, Beckham and Rooney in the same legend category? I agree it may be debatable.
Ronaldo was off course the best player, but we are now talking about legends.
But hey… It’s only my opinion
Bobby Charlton gets my vote as the best player and biggest legend, such a great player in the middle of the park and only got booked once, a close second has to be The Law Man, what a character, gawd how I miss those days.
Yeah I remember during his peak a poster (I think on here, might have been another forum) saying he was a takeaway driver and regularly delivered to Rooney's house.
I re-read your original post and agree completely, not sure what I misinterpreted at first.
I wonder how different his career could have been if he didn't have the English press hounding him, or if he'd come through a decade later when attitudes towards mental health were a bit different. On one hand he might have been able better equipped to stick to a healthy lifestyle. On the other hand, I wonder if the modern game's structured discipline on and off the pitch would have stifled the rage and creativity that made young Rooney (teens-early 20s) such a force.
Agree.. Bobby Charlton is up there with Giggs and Scholes. My list wasn’t exhaustive. Just wanted to express my opinion: that it is only one very small group of legends above Rooney.
I will put Denis Law in the same group as Rooney and Best. Also Robson.
…. so Rooney is in good company
Great Great playerAgree.. Bobby Charlton is up there with Giggs and Scholes. My list wasn’t exhaustive. Just wanted to express my opinion: that it is only one very small group of legends above Rooney.
I will put Denis Law in the same group as Rooney and Best. Also Robson.
…. so Rooney is in good company
If only he'd looked after himself better.
was almost in the bracket of Ronaldo and Messi for one season.
Brilliant player to watch on his day.
was almost in the bracket of Ronaldo and Messi for one season.
Brilliant player to watch on his day.
I had a remote job some 12 years ago or so. I wasn't familiar with football too much, but I would watch the Champions League during the week. I was captivated by Rooney, despite not knowing he was well past his prime. I could see his work rate, his reading of the game, and it looked like he played like sand paper. With grit. I wish I was able to see prime Rooney, but it led me on a journey to being the fan I am now.
Force of nature especially at such a young age.
Had he not got injured at euro2004 and likely led England to victory he would be England’s greatest player by some distance. No English player since has come close to capturing what he had then; Bellingham nowhere close.
Some say he is a legend
I loved him as a United player. Absolutely fearsome attacker, lived breathed and bled football. He won everything. He could have played longer at the top if he’d started yoga and veggie burgers and ice water, but who cares: he was a monster on the pitch, even as a teenager.
Absolutely loved him in the united shirt his on pitch performances had everything.
His work rate and will to win are what the benchmark should be to play for this club. When you add that to his incredible ability you realise how lucky we were to have him.
There were a few low points but when you consider the whole package they fade away and even during those periods he always left everything he had on the pitch.
Pace, power, aggression, work rate, will to win, passing range, shot technique, first touch you could go on and on.
He gave us his best years and was always willing to put the team first. For me he always seemed to be the man who produced when needed.
He was a player who never stopped, you could rely on him to fight through hard times and not let his head drop he literally had balls of steel.
Wayne Rooney - what a player
His work rate and will to win are what the benchmark should be to play for this club. When you add that to his incredible ability you realise how lucky we were to have him.
There were a few low points but when you consider the whole package they fade away and even during those periods he always left everything he had on the pitch.
Pace, power, aggression, work rate, will to win, passing range, shot technique, first touch you could go on and on.
He gave us his best years and was always willing to put the team first. For me he always seemed to be the man who produced when needed.
He was a player who never stopped, you could rely on him to fight through hard times and not let his head drop he literally had balls of steel.
Wayne Rooney - what a player
All geniuses are flawed. Rooney deserves to be a United Legend. No doubt in my mind
Just watching some goals from the past on MUTV - we had some amazing goal scorers over the years including Rooney of course. What amazed me was his assists and overall quality of his passing. What a player he was for us.
Absolute legend! My all time favorite player and I don't think I love any player like I loved Rooney.
One of the greatest players I have ever seen play. I feel like the transfer request and lack of conditioning in later years have made a few people forget how unplayable he was in his earlier career.
Such raw power mixed with such a deft touch.
I was very lucky to have witnessed him play multiple times between 2004 and 2008 and wish we had a player now who could influence a game like he would.
Such raw power mixed with such a deft touch.
I was very lucky to have witnessed him play multiple times between 2004 and 2008 and wish we had a player now who could influence a game like he would.
Agreed. He was unplayable up until he injured his ankle against Bayern in the CL back in 2009-2010. He was rushed back for the return leg, however he aggravated his injury and simply was not the same player after that. Of course, that coincided with his transfer request the same year.
It's crazy to think how intelligent a young Wayne Rooney was. Despite being just a player, he could still see the rot that the Glazers were bringing from a mile away. Our fans at the time viewed this as a betrayal on his part and directed all their anger at him, instead of where it truly belongs. SAF sadly sided with the Glazers on the whole "ambition" issue. Shame, considering the Glazers destroyed the legacy that he built with this club.
Superb player.
Hard to believe he signed for United 20 years ago and actually left the club 7 years ago!
Feels like only yesterday, time is weird.
Hard to believe he signed for United 20 years ago and actually left the club 7 years ago!
Feels like only yesterday, time is weird.
Not how I remember it. In that season he become incredibly prolific but in a different way to previous seasons. He started scoring loads of headers, which had never been a feature of his game. His goalscoring peaked then because he became a more efficient striker but you could see that his pace and athleticism was already on the decline before that injury. He never really turned into the player we thought he would be when he first started at United.
He was a bit of a physical freak who matured extremely young, then played a crazy amount of football while never being particularly disciplined off the field. So his natural youthful athleticism only carried him so far. He was extremely talented and capable of great moments for many years after that (still is today, as per his recent free-kick!) but Rooney’s decline wasn’t because of one injury, it was more gradual than that.
His Plymouth team are a bit like us under ETH last season. Very end to end games. Both teams with tons of chances each.
He's my absolute favourite player to ever to pull on a United shirt. I absolutely loved everything about this guy. Yes, his talent. But mainly how he played the game. His dedication, his workrate. It was magnificent to watch. Loved watching him moreso than any other player before or since. Even if all he was doing was clattering into people towards the end when he was slowing.
Bona fide United legend
Bona fide United legend
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My favorite player even more so than Messi
Love this goal.
Just watching the highlight reel of some of his goals for us on the FA Cup Facebook page. What an absolute monster of a player he was.
I still reckon we'd have won the CL and league title in 09-10 if he hadn't got that stupid injury.
I still reckon we'd have won the CL and league title in 09-10 if he hadn't got that stupid injury.
This is right.
I also wonder how much the fact Rooney turned into a different player effects the perception of him and his legacy. He had a career 99.999% of players could only dream of, but you still have a sense that he left something out there through his own professionalism or lack thereof.
I think all players go through a change when they strip back their game to its most effective parts, for example I maintain our version of Cristiano was his most exciting form before he became a goal scoring robot, so perhaps that inevitably had to happen with Rooney too, but it still feels like his debut season you were looking at a player who would unambiguously become England's greatest ever; the fact his career is tinged a little bit with 'what if' when he retired as United and England's highest ever goal scorer is testiment to how freakish his talent was.
And apropos 20 years to the day since:
Yup.
Something else that the mythology tends to gloss over is that he was a streaky player from day one. In his final seasons he was constantly getting shit for being inconsistent but this was basically always the case. Even after that amazing hat trick on his debut, that same season involved quite long barren runs. The only time he really became consistently productive (as compared to the sort of elite strikers his talent means he should be compared to) was that “season of the headers”. But that never really happened again. He was back to being his usual quite streaky self from that season onwards.
Of course, goes without saying that this current United side would be massively improved by a striker who was only as streaky as Wayne Rooney!
That’s a good way of looking at it. Why do you think that is though?
In part I think that's been true of most strikers though. From memory the season RVP came in and, by that point in their respective careers, looked a much better player than Rooney, included a two month period where he couldn't get a goal. I'd guess most of the classic '1 in 2' strikers get them in clumps.
It's only really the freaks that are Ronaldo, Messi and now Haaland that seem to avoid that, but that's kinda the point. At 18 Rooney was a better player than any of those, and whilst progession isn't linear yadadayada, I dare say that there's a world where he was in Balloon d'Or conversation even when Messi and Ronaldo were going mad.
Rooney scored in streaks for sure but his performances were nearly always consistent.
This is true, he was always someone you knew is going to have dry spell(s) during the season.
But that 2009/10 season when he was so consistent was also first season in which he played fixed position (ST) while in any of the other season he was played all over the pitch and he played like lunatic, running from box to box. Playing ST made him conserve his energy and focus, but himself said it wasn't enjoyable for him and he preffered run and gun action.