Mou vs Roo

Everyone's piling in now: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/09/19/manchester-united-captain-wayne-rooney-is-just-no-longer-good-en/

A player that is mocked and hated by all fans and football fans, like a complete laughing stock, but continues to be picked by managers and praised by pundits?

Paul Robinson doesn't count here, deems.

Gerrard was still p good for Liverpool - maybe shite for England. Even in his last season at Liverpool he was decent, despite the overhyping of the Pirlo role etc.

Is it true that he's mocked and hated by all football fans? I bet there's still loads who want to believe in the Rooney of 2004 or 2009 or even 11/12.

There are plenty, I'm sure. But he is a definite figure of fun and not just for ILX-types, I guess finding hatred on Twitter is easy but he really does have a legion of detractors.

Yeah I mean it does seem to be especially detached from reality in Rooney's case, it's the shunting him into positions to which is manifestly not competent and then pretending otherwise. He'd still probably be a reasonable #9 but there's zero case for playing him in that position over Zlatan or Rashford.

Gerrard comparison falls flat for several reasons imho. He wasn't great but still p dece at times. He wasn't put on as a striker either.

What makes this unique is Rooney persistently being played at positions that aren't his. I thought the whole 'obligated to play by contract' thing was illuminati conspiracy theory stuff, but now I'm not so sure. Because I can't for the life of me remember Mourinho of all people keeping a player in his teams that was playing so badly.

you don't remember gerrard playing the free role (aka "plz the stop fucking up my tactics captain marvel, love rafa" role) behind torres?

Gerrard was a barely competent DM and the number of goals Liverpool shipped during that otherwise amazing season should have provided some clue there, even without the slip.
Even earlier in his career he would tend to blow it against top-class opposition, comedy assists to Henry, Zidane etc. His best season was probably as an attacking midfielder and that free role did suit him pretty well but only with Alonso and Mascherano in there to free him of certain responsibilities.

Which isn't to say he wasn't a very good player but he was very... indulged in a way that other footballers wouldn't have been.

gerrard was brilliant in the free role behind torres! that was the best of gerrard!

Gerrard was a barely competent DM and the number of goals Liverpool shipped during that otherwise amazing season should have provided some clue there, even without the slip.

they're still shipping goals, don't think you can blame that on gerrard entirely. he was in no way as bad as rooney has become - he actually made a lot of goals that year, his assists figure was p high as far as i remember.

and he left fairly soon after he was done, or before he became a total passenger.

Even earlier in his career he would tend to blow it against top-class opposition

this isn't true at all - he was a big game player, too much so if anything.

Yeah fundamentally even in his dodgy last few seasons he was way better than Rooney now, but the overpraise and the overlooking of flaws is the same phenomenon, it happens to all talismanic England players. Beckham got it as well.

yeah for sure, i just think tho right now this roo situation feels unprecedented. it's exacerbated by the fact that like, even with gerrard at 34, liverpool probably didn't have a better alternative. man u have spunked hundreds of millions of pounds in recent years, and they're still playing this lost soul whose form is comically bad, plus "barnstorming midfielder to bad quarterback" is so much less unusual and silly than "striker to bad quarterback", particularly when it's rooney, who isn't like a ryan giggs type of footballer.

like it's as if, because say, ryan giggs did this and it worked well, roon feels somehow that it's a natural and normal thing, as you get older the team makes a new position for you so you can still keep playing, when the reality is giggs is prob one of the only times this actually worked.

Striker-to-quarterpounder position amirite?

I think we've established that Rooney doesn't count Lawrence Oates as a role model

it was fun when mark hughes became a defensive midfielder for the last two or three years of his career

Did that happen? Wtf I have no memory of that.

Trying to think of a decent striker-to-DM conversion. Dembele doesn't count because he was never much cop as a striker to begin with.

yeah i remember hughes as dm.

paul scholes sort of - he was a striker at the very start of his career.

i always used to wonder why full backs that can't defend weren't just made into wingers. like eg moreno, glen johnson etc.

rooney thing is so bizarre. hilarious but bizarre. i mean there's no way of knowing for sure obviously but i'm pretty certain that if pep had taken the utd job instead of going to city there's not a chance in hell rooney would be starting, he'd probably have been bombed out all together.

xp the few times i can remember glen johnson playing RW for lfc he was shite if i recall. i think that the skill set for a winger is different enough from a FB to make that transition difficult. just where they recieve the ball in realtion to the opposition, where they're facing, how much space they have etc

receive and relation that should be ffs

utd could do with a DM but a 3 of either carrick/blind(deep), pogba (leftish) derek/herrera (rightish) + zlatan, martial,rashford should be good enough i'd have thought.

I guess Mourinho did want to sign Rooney before, maybe he really loves him.

utd could do with a DM but a 3 of either carrick/blind(deep), pogba (leftish) derek/herrera (rightish) + zlatan, martial,rashford should be good enough i'd have thought.

Poor Mata.

Lol yes I forgot about Mata. Utd unbeaten this season with him in the line up. I've only seen one Utd game this season tbf and only saw 5 last season so what do I know. Find it hard to believe that pogba, mkhitaryan and zlatan arent their best 3 players by a distance so cobble together a system that suits those 3 would be a start. Totally forgot about schneiderlin and schweini as well. Oh and depay as well. By God there' s hundreds of em.

Mata played against Feyenoord tbh

If by November Utd are still playing a 4-2-3-1 and Rooney is the #10 rather than mkhitaryan or even Mata then Mourinho wants shooting.

Is it true that he's mocked and hated by all football fans? I bet there's still loads who want to believe in the Rooney of 2004 or 2009 or even 11/12.

There were, but yesterday felt like a tipping point. It's basically open revolt now

I'd be interested in hearing from huge ManU fans who still defend him playing tbh. Do they exist?

i know one or two who were defending him playing out of position for England at the start of the Euros but for some reason they seem to have come round to the "he's not a deep-lying mid" argument since the domestic season's started.

his few remaining supporters on the Utd side's argument basically boils down to "well who do we have that's better?"

they get given ammunition by games like Feyenoord where he doesn't play and the team is still shite, even though those occasions almost always feature thrown together second string sides

obviously the team has more problems than just Rooney but jesus christ getting rid of him solves so many of them in a single stroke

the whole thing is like a waking nightmare now. It defies all logic

Yeah just had a look over at redcafe.net and there's not much more on offer than "he's not the only one playing bad you know".

Never forget btw

Gerrard comparison is bizarrely illfitting

Giggs was shit for years FYI

It wasn't remotely the same and you know it

basically every paper has had a "drop Rooney" piece this week

It's all falling into place

Mourinho's played a blinder tbh

i want to believe

hmmm, I wonder who's been talking to his mates in the press tonight

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/09/20/manchester-united-manager-jose-mourinhos-criticism-of-players-na/

this whole campaign of luke shaw abuse over the years seems to have completely passed me by. handy limping labrador puppy for someone to hide behind tho i'd imagine

interesting story tho. i was thinking that, partly post-chelsea chastened but mostly carefully united-mythos-deferential given the charlton/fergie opposition, he'd been on his best behaviour biding his time for the moment. hard to believe he'd be miscalculating bollockings this early unless he's really lost the plot

Guardian have this story

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/sep/20/manchester-united-jose-mourinho-criticism-luke-shaw-efl-cup-northampton

Manchester United are not concerned about José Mourinho’s outspoken manner despite reports that Luke Shaw is unhappy at the criticism his manager levelled at him after the defeat at Watford on Sunday.

real cloak and dagger shit

is rooney starting as a forward tonight a sign of support or a sign he won't play vs leicester i wonder?

the latter. We're into the endgame here

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cs52mlTUEAAZw20.jpg

<3

ya

there'll be a belter of a Rooney compilation to come too

lol City in the next round

there'll be a belter of a Rooney compilation to come too

Hopefully featuring the bit where he 'controlled' the ball about ten yards off the pitch to break down an attacking move

^ somewhat mangled and ambiguous, but I know what I meant

this whole campaign of luke shaw abuse over the years seems to have completely passed me by. handy limping labrador puppy for someone to hide behind tho i'd imagine

Given the quote in the article, there aren't many Fergie-era remnants left in the squad - De Gea, Valencia, Carrick, TWP, Jones and Smalling. The first two strike me as unlikely, you'd think Rooney would be keeping his head down now, and the last two might still have a bit too much to lose. Has to be Carrick really.

Carrick is the other suspect alright. In the stories that came out about the players questioning LVG's methods last year it was notable that he and Rooney were the two players who supposedly staged some sort of intervention.

I still think it's Rooney though. He and Stretford are well known for courting the press. Took all the England hacks out for dinner prior to the Euros to get them onside

FA officials decided to shepherd the pair away around 11pm but they later returned to the wedding, where Rooney downed red wine while shouting obscenities at the DJ.

He is also said to have chatted for hours with a couple of female guests and later became “touchy-feely” with several others while “bumbling” around.

At one point he told the DJ to “turn the f*****g music up!”. He was also heard yelling “shut the f*** up” at guests as he listened to music on a phone.

The Man United ace had earlier surprised guests by playing the piano — but a second attempt ended in embarrassment. A guest said: “He got back on around 4.30am and collapsed on the keys. His head was resting on them. A woman picked him up.”

Guests had asked Jagielka to help but he is said to have answered: “No, f*** Wayne, he’s paid more than me and is big enough and ugly enough to look after himself.”

mixing in just enough truth there jagz

Pleased to see Fergie has passed on his love of the piano to his charges. And red wine.

Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney says reaction to his late-night conduct on England duty has been "disgraceful" and has vowed he is "not finished yet".

what a session, still on it a week later.

Determined to nail "Imagine" one day.

does he do children's parties?

feel like a user need for "interior life of wayne rooney" is developing

No one needs confirmation that's it's over for him once and for all, but if you ever needed it all you'd need to do is take one look at his beard.

"Ugly enough to look after himself", harsh but fair imho.

Quite the scene though. Shouting at the dj to turn it up, then turn it down again because he's listening to tunes on his phone, at a party. What was on Rooney's iPhone, one wonders? The man is in despair.

Quite the scene though. Shouting at the dj to turn it up, then turn it down again because he's listening to tunes on his phone, at a party.

Not even just a party - a wedding reception for people he didn't even know

I've been thinking has this all been a set up to hasten his departure from the England team.

they spiked his tenth drink huh

i had a similar thought the other day, they offered him this as a more dignified way of getting dropped rather than just because he's shit at football

kinda like The Spider's Stratagem but with wedding DJs

theme of the traitor and the he-roo

it was under our noses all along

there was a trail of lager leading to the old abandoned footballer's room

Rooney at Colonus: the Interior Life

Et mou b-roote

Jagz agreed to do it in return for an undisclosed % of profit on roo's fourth book, tentatively titled "Daddy what did you do in the world cup?"

answer: a shit