Manchester United Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 11/12

kryogen wrote: »

Goetze in a 2 man midfield would not work, that would be obvious to anybody who watched him, same with Kagawa for that matter

Pro. F wrote: »

Just the occasional kick-about these days. Since even the professionals are clueless more often than not, your word won't hold any more weight if you play more.



You are completely wrong and being totally unfair to Rooney. I watched the game back just now (only the bits involving Rooney) to check that my impression of the game was correct and here is what happened:

He showed for and laid the ball off successfully 26 times. (This also includes one winning a of free kick and one decent cross that just didn't connect - those two were worth including imo, but you can leave them out if you want.) So that is a lot more than the zero times you are ridiculously trying to claim. 14 of those times he did it while under close pressure from an opposition player and 12 of those times he linked up after receiving a pass in some space. This space he had to work very hard to find for the majority of the game, until Welbeck came on at the hour mark and Rooney could drop deeper. Rooney's running off the ball to find the gaps between the defenders while he was the furthest forward was excellent and, unsurprisingly, he wore himself out doing it.

He made seven straightforward mistakes (misplaced passes etc): in the 45th, 52nd, 54th, 57th, 71st, 86th and 89th minutes. Fatigue was clearly a factor in the later ones and tbh I'm being very harsh calling the first three straightforward mistakes.

He got his pocket picked cleanly three times and lost the ball while fighting for it four times. None of it was particularly bad play on Rooney's part and it was absolutely nothing like the fecklessness that you are saying it was.

Yes there were three times where he didn't compete properly for the ball in the air, but there were also five other times when he did. He is not a good target man and playing long balls to him is a bad plan anyway. He did fine for his size.

And you are still ignoring the fact that he was going up against the two centre backs and whichever fullbacks and central midfielders were around when United broke forward. The defenders don't have to be in contact to be causing the striker problems, they can cut off his options and box him in which is just as important.

With regard to the FBs, Rooney moved into the channel between them and the CBs a lot while he was up front and so gave them lots of work to do when United broke forward. The fact that the City fullbacks did a lot of getting forward is because United ceded/lost so much ground in the midfield and let City come onto them, you can't blame Rooney for that. He still gave them plenty of defending to do when the ball came his way; it is impressive when you consider how isolated he was. The fact that the FBs didn't make many tackles does not mean that they didn't have to get into position to cover what Rooney was doing and take away his options.

I know Rooney has played poorly at times recently, but this type of criticism for last nights game is nonsense. I've seen it before. United play completely defensively and attack in dribs and drabs and people complain when Rooney doesn't win the game single handedly. They ignore the fact that he is physically unsuited to that role and still works his balls off and deals as best as he can with the long balls, while finding space and linking up the play excellently. They see him tiring and playing a few bad passes and suddenly he's supposed to be a part of the problem. It's not his fault that it didn't work out last night, it's Ferguson's for not supporting him properly.


You're some man for giving the orders.