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03 May 2015 08:03:06
ask yourself this would you play Rooney as a midfielder ahead of Schweinsteiger, Thiago, Alonso, Modric, Kroos, Xavi, Carrick, Busquets or Vidal? No because there are soooo many better midfielders out there than how Rooney can play in midfield. 

Would you play Rooney as a striker ahead of the likes of Lewandowski, Cavani, Benzema, Suarez, Costa or Aguero? Probably not as they are better and more consistent strikers than him. 

Would you play Rooney as a winger ahead of the likes of Ronaldo, Bale, Hazard ect, again no
shappy

it seems as soon as we lose a game the same people have the knives out for rooney.

well in the above post remove rooneys name and insert any of our other players.

truth is rooney has been one of our best players this year playing all over the park , but yes we should sell him ?

ps. for all the people shouting he shouldn't been in cm .
is he playing any worse than our other cm?
and whos decision is it to play him there .

lvg can do no wrong

{Ed025's Note - some good points there jred mate..

Agree4 Disagree6

03 May 2015 10:15:10
Jred - The answer to you question is no Rooney wouldn't play ahead of those players, you could probably treble the list.

So why is he captain of our team, England and is paid more than 95% of those players? Why is he treated like he is in the World Class bracket still when he left it 4 years ago?

It's because LVG and in turn we are desperate. So long as we rely on Rooney we will not compete at the top level again, he is not a talisman for us as you can count the number of games he has been MOTM on one hand this season, probably 2-3 games maximum.

He is a good player but he isn't a great striker and he is a lower prem level midfielder at best. Therefore we need to move him on or start to treat him like we do other players of a similar standard, bench him etc.

My personal gripe with Rooney is that when he plays in midfield he disrupts everything as well as not contributing enough personally. This is the managers fault, but until recently there were a good proportion of our supporters saying he would be a great midfielder in time. Not many of those knocking around anymore.

He doesn't do anything up front either, aside from the Preston game he has been pretty much anonymous this year up there.

03 May 2015 10:33:27
beast
as i said you could change rooneys name for any other player in uniteds team and it would be the same.

rooney has easily been one of our best players this season if we where going to start shipping players out there would be a lot to go before rooney

03 May 2015 10:47:12
Well done Jred, yet again you have managed to read my post and take out a couple of tiny segments to make your point and make it seem i'm saying something i'm not.

I started that post stating that the result yesterday was not Rooneys fault in the slightest. I went to to say Rooney has been a great player for us, and even said that he could still have a future at our club.

The point i was discussing with Clarity was that Rooney who will be 30 next season and is no longer world class in any position(on a regular basis, obviously he still has games where he plays to a world class level but he no longer does it every week) is not the player to rebuild our team around.

Yes he does a good job in many positions but if you build a team around a player who is merely good in the position they play in then your team will be only able to play at a good level, if you want your team to play to a world class level then you need to build your team around a world class player who is playing in his best position.

John O'Shea was good in many positions but you wouldn't build your team around him. He would drop out of the team the moment a player who could play the position better than him became available.

Should Rooney play in midfield ahead of Carrick or Herrera? No and when they are fit and able to play he doesn't, earlier in the season and yesterday RvP was played ahead of him as a striker, and although didn't score played the position better than he has at any point this season. RvP isn't world class anymore yet he played a better game as a striker than Rooney has this season tells you that Rooney is a good striker still but not a world class one.

The big argument the Rooney fan boys come out with is he can play well in many positions. And he can, there is no doubting that. But you never see any other manager of any other player asking a world class striker to play any other position other than as a striker.

If you have a world class player you don't make him play in positions other than his best, you then move other players around. For me Rooneys best position was as a wide forward in a 433 in the same kind of position that Neymar plays. The role Rooney played in 2008, with Ronaldo on the opposite flank and Tevez as the main striker. It allowed Rooney to find space and score goals, it meant he was on the ball more than as a main striker and it made use of his work rate, pace and all round ability. This is where he probably should be playing now. Where Mata plays and probably moving Mata to play more centrally.

Chelsea build their team around Hazard and as a result when the chips a re down he is still able to come up with a goal or create a chance for someone else as we found out the other week. Barcalona build around Messi and Real around Ronaldo. We need to find that player to build around. Sadly that player isn't Rooney.

{Ed004's Note - I don't think we should sell Rooney (who could afford his wages), unless he throws a tantrum, but he should become a squad player over the next year or so. He still offers experience and leadership.}

03 May 2015 11:01:09
Yes you could Jred - but could you say the same for how all our players are treated? There is one rule for Rooney and one for everyone else (aside from Blind and RVP it seems although their injuries have hidden this bias).

I don't think he has been one of our best players this season as it happens. Although even if he has been it isn't saying much at all considering the standard.

The way Rooney is treated mirrors how our manager expects to be treated. Like an untouchable on a pedestal, but frankly delivery is rank average for the expected standard.

Basically the special treatment for Rooney is not justified and is of detriment to the team as a whole. LVG spouts the teams is bigger than the individual, but he doesn't act on that.

03 May 2015 11:07:21
Great post Jred. And by the way, someone posts an incorrect stat and the haters lap it up. Wayne has scored 7 and assisted 2 in his last 12 games. 3 of those games he did not play as an out and out striker. But hey ho, what is fun is agenda posting through incorrect stats. True mate, the same ones usually come running to belittle our captain. Shappy, how is your better than Rooney Welbeck doing aye? 4 goals all season. Sorry, just having a little bit of fun. Rooney hasn't been great for the last 5 matches but the grass is always greener and that sort of thing. Beast even predicted Welbeck to be the leagues top scorer :)

Deeps.

03 May 2015 11:11:49
shappy
we haven't built our team around rooney infact lvg system that you are so fond of doesn't really build around any player.
its a possesion based system where everyone has a job
was rooney worse than mata ,herrera or fellaini .
mata was poor again imo.

as soon as we lose a game you get the same people shouting sell rooney.
as i said your whole argument could apply to any one of our players .

as i have said before if we start getting rid of players there will be a few to go before rooney .
like it or not shaps he is one of our best players .

03 May 2015 11:37:08
When Mourinho went all out to buy Rooney a couple of years ago , it was to play him as a centre forward , not in midfield or as a wide forward ( where he never looked happy )

03 May 2015 11:49:18
Jred, Rooney is always picked because he is captain, and he is shunted around the pitch to make way for players who play the position better than him. I'm not saying Rooney is a bad player, far from it. He is a very good player. But If we are to move forward we need world class players in every position or at least great players. If you could build your dream 11 Rooney probably wouldn't start, that tells us where we should be heading with Rooney.

I think he should remain at the club, but his role should be that as the player who fills in for the great/world class players when they are injured or suspended. We should be aiming to have players who can play in midfield better than Rooney can, players who can play upfront better than Rooney can, players who can play wide or in the No.10 position better than Rooney can. But keeping Rooney to play those roles when they can't.

I agree there are many other players who should and will leave the club before Rooney does, he can still be a very valuable asset to our club. But it should be his experience and versatility that we value and not him as a first choice starter. We need better players for that.

03 May 2015 12:05:25
shappy
he is shunted round the team because he is the best man for the job .
from the players we had available yesterday rooney needed to play cm as simple as.
as for players who play the position better we have looked a better team when rooney has played striker.
our best football has been when rvp was injured and rooney played up top.

your point about needing 11 worldclass players and rooney not making a dream 11 is stupid.
non of our out field players would .
again you could remove rooneys name from your post and add any other players.
we should maybe aim for players who can play better than young , mata rvp blind etc etc the list would go on and on.

in this present team rooney would always be one of the first names on the team sheet imo there are plenty i would replace before rooney

03 May 2015 12:08:18
also rooney doesn't always play because he is captain .
he always plays because he is one of our best players and when fit he starts.
its one of the reasons he was made captain

03 May 2015 13:01:23
Actually LvG has stated more than once that the captain of his teams always receives certain privileges, and he has said his captain if fit will always start.
He has made Rooney captain, now I don't completely disagree with that decision as there is a real lack of other candidates atm. But to say that Rooney will start if fit regardless doesn't bode well.

I agree that with our current group of players that Rooney should be one of the first names on the team sheet, De Gea and our defence should be picked first as you always build from the back, but I would never start him as one of a midfield two, for me he would play as either the furthest forward of the midfield three or as a striker. Failing that as a wide forward similar to the role Mata is playing.

So that puts Rooney in direct competition with Fellaini, RvP and Mata atm. Yesterday the runs and off the ball work RvP did were better than anything I've seen from Rooney when he has played as a striker this season. imo RvP was let down by his own rusty finishing(he has been out for nearly 2 months) and a lack of balls being played into him after he made those runs.
Fellaini has been in great form this season but he still isn't a traditional Manchester United player. that's not to say he isn't a good player but he lacks the finesse and vision to play against teams that park the bus. Against teams that will push further up he will be able to create havoc with his ability to bring down the long ball forcing teams to be wary of him if they push forward. But against teams that sit deep and in numbers his effect on the game is limited.
Mata playing wide is also a part time role, against certain teams it will work well, against other he will be a total bystander. We would have been better placed yesterday playing Mata in Fellaini's position and having one of Januzaj or Di Maria out wide stretching them and creating space in the middle for Rooney and Mata to work in.

I'd have had Young on the right meaning he will go wide rather than cut in, and one of Januzaj or Di Maria on the left doing the same pulling the full backs out wide isolating the CB's and creating a 3 on 2 in our favour with RvP, Rooney and Mata in the middle using the space to open them up.
By playing wide players who want to cut in allowing their full backs to come in with them meant that they had four defenders in their box and two midfielders camped just outside it making in impossible to break through.

But its easy to work these things out in hindsight.

{Ed004's Note - The problem is everyone on this site knew how Pulis was going to set up his team to play manutd at old Trafford. There was no need for Fellaini to play yesterday and if so play him were Herrera was playing and make the other manager change his formation. Ideally Fellaini would have been holding midfielder (mainly for height at set pieces), Herrera and Mata central with Di Maria and young out wide supporting a striker. Play a high line with Smalling and McNair and press West Brom if all they want to do is sit deep. Don't give them a minutes rest}

03 May 2015 13:07:36
PFM i assume u are talking about my stat? If u took the time to read it properly you would see i said scored in 4 games not scored 4. I find that makes it a more transparent way of asessing the performance ie if a player scored 5 in one match but doesn't score for the next 7 games if u say he's scored 5 in 8 games it doesn't offer a true reflection of performance. Please do try to read things thoroughly before announcing them as incorrect. Cheers

03 May 2015 13:18:52
shappy
he wouldn't make some one captain if he didn't think , when fit he would start .

03 May 2015 13:30:08
Granted Jred, but if there is someone who could perform the role better and is fit then that player should play. Your captain should start most games, but not all even if fit. You need to play the best players in their best positions in order to get the right result.

Like I said i would have have had Rooney playing where he was yesterday against a team that was always going to sit deep. When everyone is fit i would probably have Rooney replacing Fellaini in the team with Carrick as the deepest midfielder and Hererra playing the box to box role. The decision should then be who plays the wider roles between Mata, Di Maria, Januzaj and Young.

{Ed004's Note - I would like to see Rooney start on the left of a front 3 with Di Maria on the left of a midfield 3, running into the space Rooney leaves free. Would then have RVP and Rooney in the box. Possibly Fellaini as well to target}

03 May 2015 15:06:36
Jred

I know the manager puts him there but iMO he is not a good CM at all. When I have stated that him in midfield is a non starter for me it is because we end up sitting a recognised midfielder to make way for Rooney and RVP.

It just happens that Carrick is injured or it would mean that either Fellaini or herrera end up sitting. They are both better in the middle of the pitch than rooney. I am not sure if people realise this but hitting a cross field long pass is not that difficult in Football and most CM can do that. Where you separate the good ones from the average ones is how they can operate in a crowded middle of the pitch and their short passing and control and dribbling. Wayne is not good at that.

This is not about Rooney or the team being built around him but more about the managers decision to play him there. We look pretty poor every time LVG has done this and from what i have read about yesterday, it was no different.

03 May 2015 16:15:03
gcu
we have played our best football with rooney playing up top.
i would like to think he is only playing cm due to carrick being injured.
i would play rooney ahead of rvp in this system but i have a bad feeling lvg will try to fit both into the team.

i wouldn't play rooney cm but i think he does a better job than fellaini and blind . i think blind is very average.

also with rvp and rooney on the pitch what was fellaini doing playing cf. dear me

03 May 2015 16:21:44
While Rooney is at the club he will always start, be it CF or midfield. It's wrong, but it's true. How could a manager explain having a squad player on the wages he is on? The captain thing has complicated things further.

03 May 2015 16:33:39
Jred

I did not see the game but every time I see the line up come out and Rooney and RVP in the starting eleven i am hoping we are playing a 442 but The manager keeps insisting on playing rooney as CM, which I think is a mistake.

03 May 2015 18:00:39
RVP was playing CM most of the 2nd half as well GCU! Just remember any game pre Spurs and you have our performance, so no need to waste time watching the pointless, sideways/backwards passing fest.

03 May 2015 18:10:00
gcu
fellaini cf ?
with rooney and rvp playing deep .

03 May 2015 18:36:12
That is even more nuts Jred. I am not sure what to expect from this team at all as it feels like we can have a howler on any given week.







 

 

 
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