Has to be bullshit to get the Evertonians on side surely?
Wayne Rooney - Manchester United Legend
- Thread starter VP89
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He was always able to score goals, even in his currently fat state but the bottom line was even in that Moyes season he was not good enough to be playing for Man United, hence we finished so low in the League. It wasn't good enough. Fergie wanted him gone the year before so already he had reached the point where he wasn't Manchester United quality.
He was really poor for england in major tournaments aside from 2004 but post 2012, it had become clear that he was one of the main reasons for why we were so poor at keeping the ball and playing a more dynamic style of football, which culminated in the disaster of 2014.. where he shockingly spat out his dummy at being put on left wing in what was lookng to be a very good performance v Italy to make the whole team be about him and we got knocked out in the group stages.. and also somehow forcing his way into the Euro 2016 side as well. It was unforgivable really.
For example if we brought Ruud out of retirement, he'd probably still score 15 goals a season, but would he be of United quality? should he be allowed to add more goals to his records, to the detriment of the side? it isn't right or meritocratic.
Sorry but have to disagree with that. Zlatan was our top scorer in the league with 17 goals last season, Martial with 11 goals in 15/16, and Rooney with 12 goals in 14/15.
He also scored 27 league goals in 11/12, which is the second highest league tally in the premier league for us, with only Ronaldo in 07/08 bettering it.
It's a myth that Rooney was finished in 2011 and he certainly wasn't at fault for England's poor performances in the last decade or so.
he wasn't solely to blame by any means, but he was certainly at fault...
We will agree to disagree. All I know is that our league positions have spoken for themselves on the quality of players post Fergie's era and Rooney should not have been at the club post his departure.
Ruud for example scored 30 goals in his last season here despite it becoming pretty apparent he was holding the club back by that stage, that is how high standards were - I am sorry but Rooney's 12 goals etc are worth feck all in all honesty, because any half decent 'legend' worth their salt if they were playing every game without fail and no fear of being dropped would probably hit those figures. It was stat-padding.
Wow. 16 pages on and still those few haters are at it.
Just repeating the same bs over and over and over again hoping it will turn opinion into fact.
They must really love to hate.
Please start your own thread titled "Rooney is a scouse wanker" and wank yourself to oblivion there. Sincere request. Leave the 1000+ people who genuinely respect Rooney the United legend to say their goodbyes in peace.
Just repeating the same bs over and over and over again hoping it will turn opinion into fact.
They must really love to hate.
Please start your own thread titled "Rooney is a scouse wanker" and wank yourself to oblivion there. Sincere request. Leave the 1000+ people who genuinely respect Rooney the United legend to say their goodbyes in peace.
Exactly. According to some, even our holy trinity don't deserve legend status. Tear down their statues already.
Tell you what. I'll give you a 10 year contract to play for Leeds. Tell me if you can "stat pad" your way to a statue.
I think you quoted the wrong post?
If you meant me, you started with 'Calm down' and went on a weird rant about 'stat-padding'.
If Rooney had walked out the door with Fergie he would have walked out on a high. He would have felt missed.
His last 4 years have not enhanced his standing as a club folk-legend. They've diminished them, despite the goal scoring record. He's now had a career that was one third sensational, one third great, one third terrible.
Haha you're right. It does sound wrong now that you put it that way.he's not dead FFS!
Legend, pure and simple.
He didn't for feck sake stop posting this stuff.
No they didn't.
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Great servant of the club. Sad to see him go but he was done tbh.
Legend, no question.
Legend, no question.
I said it here somewhere a few months ago, history will hopefully remember him more fondly than the last few years have allowed. Seeing his shocking decline and the fact it coincided with our worst period in 20+ years has soured a lot of recent memories of him and even though Ive been very anti Rooney in recent years its still odd and sad somewhat to see him leave.
There has been some fantastic memories and moments and performances from him over the years but amongst all the goals there is 2 moments that stand out for me. The first one most people will be hard pressed to remember-during the 0-0 draw with Chelsea during the first home game of the season under Moyes (the one where Jose played no striker) Ramires got to the byline with the ball and Rooney charged from miles away and won the ball with a tackle he should never have been able to make.
The other is his last game for us, 2-0 in injury time in Europa League final, Ajax have a throw in, take the throw and Rooney launches in with a full blooded tackle and won the ball showing a desire I thought long gone and that was one of his defining qualities in my mind. It was like watching him 10 years younger.
Sad to see him go but necessary for the club which is more important.
There has been some fantastic memories and moments and performances from him over the years but amongst all the goals there is 2 moments that stand out for me. The first one most people will be hard pressed to remember-during the 0-0 draw with Chelsea during the first home game of the season under Moyes (the one where Jose played no striker) Ramires got to the byline with the ball and Rooney charged from miles away and won the ball with a tackle he should never have been able to make.
The other is his last game for us, 2-0 in injury time in Europa League final, Ajax have a throw in, take the throw and Rooney launches in with a full blooded tackle and won the ball showing a desire I thought long gone and that was one of his defining qualities in my mind. It was like watching him 10 years younger.
Sad to see him go but necessary for the club which is more important.
I agree with this.
A moment slightly soured by the fact that he was trying to secure a move to Chelsea at the time!
Which made the moment all the more in my mind that he showed that desire in the circumstances. Would have been very easy to just not bother or put in the effort. (which arguably he stopped doing as soon as LvG said he was undroppable).
In that terrible third he scored an average of 10 league goals a season, 25%+ more than any other player at the time and a perfectly respectable record if you look through our club's scoring history or at many great goalscorer's records outside of their peak. At least 2 of those goals were among the most iconic goals in our club's long history. In that period our top 3 scorers are...
- Rooney - 40 goals
- Mata - 29 goals
- van Persie - 22 goals
- Productivity - 31 goals in 158 league games
- Success - Finished as low as 18th and as high as 8th, following a period of turmoil driven by managerial change*
*In Busby's penultimate year we won the European Cup and finished 2nd in the league, in his final year we narrowly lost out on reaching a 2nd European Cup final in a row but finished 11th in the league, then the spiral began with Charlton as an essential part of the team
So? It's hard to blame someone for sticking to his boyhood club. I'm sure he has genuine feelings for United, and the fact that he still cherishes the club he was raised a fan of isn't diminishing his status as a United legend.
Agree with @Raees, although he put it rather harshly - and managers are more to blame for his squad inclusions that he is himself.
Yeah, I guess you can view it either way - often players raise their game against teams that they are trying to get a move to...but I'm probably being overly harsh.
It was refusing to celebrate with the rest of the team against Swansea the week before that really peed me off, but again it's not really the time for it now.
He would've never been a Charlton/Giggs/Best level legend though.
Hmm, there are a lot of holes in those arguments. Mata isn't an out and out striker, and RVP left 2 years ago.
You would expect him to be the highest scorer in that period mainly due to him being the only striker that played through the entire period.
And a comparison to Bobby Charlton doesn't prove very much - they were different players at different ages, playing different positions in a different period.
Rio Ferdinand has just tweeted this;
Notice he used the term "Football Legend" and not Man Utd Legend? There's a reason for that
Notice he used the term "Football Legend" and not Man Utd Legend? There's a reason for that
Indeed, when i seen this poll i had an idea the majority would vote yes. But i am surprised just how overwhelmingly one sided it is to be honest.
You're right it seems like a vocal minority popping up in every thread have made their numbers seem greater than they actually are.
It depends on what argument you think I'm making.
If I was suggesting that Rooney has performed exceptionally compared to his peers, and his goal record is evidence of that, then the argument would be full of holes. I think it's pretty clear that's not what I'm suggesting given the fact I specifically said he performed poorly...which is undeniable. The reality is that his poor performances were influenced by the poor performances of his team-mates, his managers and those in charge of player recruitment, much in the same way his great performances were influenced by great performances from the same folk.
To describe his performances in that context as terrible is an outrageous assessment when placed into the context of this club's long, storied history, as opposed to simply placing it in the context of a genuinely exceptional period. Placing it in that context is the only way to truly appreciate his contribution to the club in its totality. Looking at it only within a bubble only serves to (indirectly) dismiss over a hundred years of this club's history.
As for Charlton, you're not really making any argument here. You're just trying to take that argument off the table because it doesn't fit the narrative that people have happily eaten up.
The simple question is whether you think Charlton played significantly worse than he did at his peak, whether that dip in performances was in part influenced by the poor performances of his team-mates, his managers and those in charge of player recruitment, and whether that dip in individual performance had a significant impact on our decline as a team. If all of the answers to that are yes - and there's a great deal of evidence for that - then he's in almost exactly the same boat. Or at least a boat as similar as you could possibly get.
What a hypocritical post.
If Rooney did stat padding what about Charlton and Best who also stayed for about 4 or 5 years after 68, shadow of their former selves, barely talking to each other while united were struggling to be successful? How is that different from whatever Rooney supposedly did by not leaving united even though he was still our best outfield player till 2015?
There's a reason Rio didn't call him a United legend. Which he is easily could of considering this topic is being discussed everywhere. It's because he knows Rooneys loyalties are with Everton and although he is a footballing legend, it would be inappropriate to call him a United one. Rio was always on point and still is.
Compare Rooney and how he broke the record to how Charlton set it in the first place, not Messi and Ronaldo.
You are reading too much into things
Btw by your definition Sir Bobby wouldn't be a legend? Because he wasn't a one club man either. Neither will Denis law. Eric Cantona.
With all our success the last 25 years we're lucky to have a lot of legends, I'm sure some will consider him a legend but I was out yesterday with six 30+ mancs and none of us would consider him a legend, none of us have any time for him and were all hoping he left years ago.
You're twisting it to fit your mental viewpoint.
Rio thinks he's a United legend, an England legend, and a general football legend.
You can't just quote his stats in comparison to other players without the playing field being level. Mata isn't a striker, and RVP left United halfway through the period you're talking about, so what does including their figures by comparison show?
Rooney's quality would have shone out regardless of how his team mates were performing - if it was still there. That hatrick against Fenerbahce had nothing to do with teammates, nor did most of his amazing goals. Clearly there is going to be some correlation between a teams performance and the performance of individuals within it, but that is only a small part of the story when it comes to Rooney - he's just declined rapidly for various reasons, most of them (imho) beyond his control.
Well firstly, Bobby Charlton was 5 years older than Rooney when he finished at United so I would imagine that the majority of his 'dip' was just a natural slowing down due to age. I'm not saying the other factors that you mention didn't have any effect, but it seems strange to use a completely different player (who let's not forget had gone through the mental anguish of the Munich Air Disaster), with a quite different set of circumstances from 50 years ago to bolster your point. I don't really know what point you are trying to make with this? Both players stats slowed down in their final years at the club...and? Rooney's decline started whilst he was at what is normally a footballers peak, and there are lots of theories as to the reasons behind that. Bobby Charlton had a much more natural decline, at the kind of age that is much more the norm. The quality of the teams around them is pretty irrelevant.
Not twisting anything, the issue of "Is Rooney a United Legend" is in almost every Newspaper/Sports website. Rio couldn't have missed it. Especially considering he is now working in the Media and needs to be on top of what is going on.
Considering all that why would he not make a point of backing his friend and saying he is a United legend? Why use the term football legend? He is a smart man and often talks a lot of sense, and this is just another example of that. I think its more a case of you really want Rooney to be a United legend and will ignore or disregard even the most obvious things to make yourself feel better
Difference being both of them are the two best british footballers of all time without a shadow of a doubt, Ballon D'or winners at their peak and all time great footballers.
Rooney does not have anywhere near that level of pedigree.
Why don't you compare the positions they played in, the influence they had on their respective sides club and country on the biggest stages in world football, the individual trophies they won on the international stage and their abilities as footballers across the breadth of their career. Huge gulf in class for me.
One is an all time great footballer, the best british footballer of all time, the other was a guy who had the potential to be best, fell short of that but will be remembered as a hard working talented player who deserves to be remembered as a legend but not right up there with the best United players of all time.
Like I said there are two extremes to this argument, but anyone seeking to bring up Sir Bobby Charlton to justify Rooney deserving to be up there with the greatest legends is shooting themselves in the foot.
Peak Charlton is the type of opponent that had Beckenbauer shaking in his boots, and one of the all time great attacking/cm's.. when has Rooney ever come close to being mentioned in all time great circles outside of when he first burst on to the scene.
Also re-read my posts, I said Rooney is a legend undoubtedly.. but he isn't up there with the greats, for me anyone that thinks he is, is biased or blinded by statistics.
That's not what you said. You said legend isn't someone who essentially prolongs their career end even when they aren't of the quality to be at united even when the quality of the team is reducing. Which best and Charlton weren't for a good while before they left too. So going by your latest post, if you were Britain's best player you can just stay past your best years and it will be ok?
You also said that another reason he isn't a legend is because he wasn't a driving force behind our title wins from 06-12 and was just supporting act. Which isn't exactly true. Rooney had many moments in those games where he singlehandedly won us games. You talk as if he was like Willian to Hazard last season whereas he was more like Suarez/neymar to messi in those seasons. You are just in denial if you say he isn't. At his prime he was one of the best in the world. Winning or not winning ballon d'or doesn't define anything.
There's two points here worth discussing.
The first is that Charlton had a more "natural" decline. Absolutely true. The flipside of that is he had a much more "natural" introduction to professional football, which means he was less important and less effective player than Rooney when he first began. What does it matter when they peaked and when they declined? It's just a number. Rooney was better as a youngster, Charlton better as an experienced old head, all of that time should be grouped together as outside of their peak, and none of the time outside of their peak could be consisdered terrible.
The reality is they were at their peak for roughly the same period of time and outside of their peak, all things considered, performed at a relatively similar level. Charlton was named as one of the top 10 players in Europe at in 1963 at the age of 25 and remained there in 4 of the next 5 seasons. Rooney entered the top 10 at the age of 18 but reached his highest point in the rankings in 2011 at the age of 25.
The other is that you think the team has a limited impact on individual players' performances. That's a ridiculous assertion which is so easily disproven it's not even worth talking about.
If you really can't see the parallels between Rooney and Charlton then it's simply because you don't want to see them, either because it ruins your perspective of Charlton or it rejects your perspective of Rooney. The reality is the two are mutually inclusive. Either you believe Charlton was terrible in his final years and deserves to be blamed for our decline as a club, or you believe Rooney shouldn't and we should instead celebrate the much more important part of his career. You can't have both though. The internal logic doesn't work.
Exactly. Some people just keep saying those things without taking things into perspective. Without context.
I never said that. I said Rooney is undoubtedly a legend for his contribution from 2006-2011 (his prime years, which is the basis upon which I will bestow legendary status on him) and that cannot be disagreed with.
My argument was that he then stat padded, and that his end career numbers were undeserved for club and country. If it was a case of managers just being stupid and selecting him fair enough, but there was clear evidence that he was very Machiavellian behind the scenes in order to preserve the status quo. The reason why I was vocal about this particular point is that without these record statistics he would not be anywhere near the conversation of who are the greatest United legends of all time or top ten legends of the club.
Now people of pointed out that Charlton and Best overstayed their welcome which is a fair point, however even if they had both left say in 1969.. they had done enough by that point to be recognised as the greatest United and British footballers of all time, they were reference points for British football as there has never been a decade in which Britain conquered world football in the same way (3 Ballon D'or winners from British isles, 2 CL successes, a world cup win etc).
So the fact that they might have 'stat-padded' was besides the point as they were already greatest of all time calibre footballers, whereas Rooney without stat-padding would be completely excluded from the debate. So there is a reason why I am bringing it up in relation to Rooney and excluding it from any critique of Charlton.
Even someone like Pele and Romario 'stat-padded' to hit 1000+ goals, but they have ridiculously amazing careers to fall back on if anyone was going to criticise their pedigree. Rooney wasn't Charlton/Best/Law level during his career peak with us. That is a fact.
I think you misunderstood my post mate, i'm not saying Rooney is a legend on the scale of Charlton. In fact i'm not talking about any of the legend stuff at all.
I'm only referring to your theory of Rooney's stat-padding, yes Rooney broke the record by scoring less goals than at his peak over a few seasons of decline. But then Charlton set the record in similar circumstances in the first place.
So with that in mind i don't think it's fair to say he didn't deserve the record or shouldn't have had the opportunity to break it. If Charlton had set the record in his prime with a barnstorming 30-40 goal season then a case could be made for a deserving successor needing to do the same, but it just wasn't the case.