The Manchester United Club Thread **Sponsored by Comedy Central**
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Lol. Sums it up nicely.
They keep concentrating on what he has done rather than what he is doing. It's pathetic.
He just seems to genuinely not have the ability to play at this level any more. Physically he's not quick, strong or agile and in terms of actual footballing ability his touch is poor, his passing and vision are not good enough and he can't tackle. He is, simply, not a good enough footballer any more to be in the side.
While this may be right , it really should be irrelevant.
The only opinion that matters is the managers, if he continues to get picked (for whatever reason) then Utd have no hope of getting top 10 let alone top 4 this season
With him playing (or despite him playing) the only teams right now I would be confident of beating are those potential relegation candidates - and any other wins come down to individual brilliance on the day from other players
edit - in one sense I'm kinda glad Zlatan is missing the chances in the last few matches he really should be putting away as that will hopefully focus more on those players that aren't working, are slowing the attacks down etc etc
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Caporegime
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Do they keep focusing on the fact that rooney has still done more in the last 3 seasons than any other of our current squad?
That's despite the rest of the team doing virtually nothing to earn their corn.
Then can anyone rell me one positive thing that pogba has done to influence a result this year, br rhat a goal or assist?
Caporegime
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Rooney is on the pitch in a key position, he's taken penalties and corners, that means that even when he sucks, every now and then he'll get goals and assists that others don't even have a chance to add to their own tallies.
Rooney ruins the team with the way he plays, the entire team looks worse because he's in it. Again, look at City with Toure removed, night and day. They are suddenly attacking with pace and those pacey players playing to their strengths look monumentally improved. People can also point out Toure's scoring and assist records, it's not just about their stats, it's about watching a game and seeing that like Rooney he frequently slowed the game down. At his best he didn't, but 60-70% of every game he was bad, he did slow the game down, he didn't burst forwards and he didn't help defensively. City's defence has changed overnight by removing Toure, their offence is working as a unit more consistently and they are breaking more often and faster. Removing a player who at his best can be brilliant has helped that team, Rooney is no where near Toure's 10 mins of effective football per game form, he's much much worse.
Rooney struggled and looked genuinely incompetent against a league one club. He is effectively the cork in a champagne bottle at the moment, he's rubbish but he's in a position where he's holding back everyone else in the bottle(team), remove him and the rest of the players can break out and be free to play the best they can. Currently they are all limited by Rooney. Once again, look at Toure, remove him and City are flying. I said that for years actually, fans get stuck on this idea that if a player is scoring or assisting... he can't be playing badly enough to replace. It's a stupid concept, if you're on the pitch you can play badly and still nab a goal, many players have played terribly and nicked a goal. People pointed to Toure's best moments as a reason why he obviously shouldn't be dropped but ultimately a better team in the 70% of a game he doesn't show up is more worthwhile to a team than a potentially better player for only 30% of a game.
Rooney ruins the team with the way he plays, the entire team looks worse because he's in it. Again, look at City with Toure removed, night and day. They are suddenly attacking with pace and those pacey players playing to their strengths look monumentally improved. People can also point out Toure's scoring and assist records, it's not just about their stats, it's about watching a game and seeing that like Rooney he frequently slowed the game down. At his best he didn't, but 60-70% of every game he was bad, he did slow the game down, he didn't burst forwards and he didn't help defensively. City's defence has changed overnight by removing Toure, their offence is working as a unit more consistently and they are breaking more often and faster. Removing a player who at his best can be brilliant has helped that team, Rooney is no where near Toure's 10 mins of effective football per game form, he's much much worse.
Rooney struggled and looked genuinely incompetent against a league one club. He is effectively the cork in a champagne bottle at the moment, he's rubbish but he's in a position where he's holding back everyone else in the bottle(team), remove him and the rest of the players can break out and be free to play the best they can. Currently they are all limited by Rooney. Once again, look at Toure, remove him and City are flying. I said that for years actually, fans get stuck on this idea that if a player is scoring or assisting... he can't be playing badly enough to replace. It's a stupid concept, if you're on the pitch you can play badly and still nab a goal, many players have played terribly and nicked a goal. People pointed to Toure's best moments as a reason why he obviously shouldn't be dropped but ultimately a better team in the 70% of a game he doesn't show up is more worthwhile to a team than a potentially better player for only 30% of a game.
I've been saying pretty much the same thing about his play for England since 2010. People point to his passing success rate etc but that doesn't reflect that most of his passes are from him dropping deep and playing 1-2's with defenders and other deep lying midfielders, or relatively safe balls to wingers in miles of space. The only effectiveness Rooney's style of play seems to achieve is making him look as good on paper when compared to other playmaking midfielders (those who actually interlink with their strikers playing balls that hurt opposition teams).
The main reason he's breaking records for England and United is he has been able to largely underperform without any threat of being dropped, helped largely by the way the media has always swooned over him. I think there's a lot of stage-managing been going on by the FA and United, playing him "out of position" in midfield and turning any negative performances into a positive of self sacrifice, creating the illusion that he still has it as a striker but is unselfishly playing in midfield. Putting him on corners so people can't question why he isn't scoring from them and giving him more chance of assists, putting him on penalties to inflate his goalscoring, making him captain when it starts becoming hard to gloss over his poor performances.
The main reason he's breaking records for England and United is he has been able to largely underperform without any threat of being dropped, helped largely by the way the media has always swooned over him. I think there's a lot of stage-managing been going on by the FA and United, playing him "out of position" in midfield and turning any negative performances into a positive of self sacrifice, creating the illusion that he still has it as a striker but is unselfishly playing in midfield. Putting him on corners so people can't question why he isn't scoring from them and giving him more chance of assists, putting him on penalties to inflate his goalscoring, making him captain when it starts becoming hard to gloss over his poor performances.
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The stats don't really support this argument. For Utd this season Rooney's averaging 2.4 key passes per game (the most at Utd with Fellaini 2nd with 1.4), 2.2 crosses per game (the most at Utd with Valencia 2nd with 1.4) and 4 long passes per game (2nd behind Pogba with 4.3) and he's doing all that with better than 85% pass completion.
That's mostly down to his position though, even Oscar is managing 2.4 key passes per game and he's only OK. Put a more competent player in the #10 role and their stats will be better.
Edit - plus with so few games played those stats can be skewed, one good game makes them look better.
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Caporegime
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You know what a key pass is right. Rooney passes 5 yards to his right and a player shoots from 40 yards, key pass. Rooney flicks a ball over the top with a player racing to catch up to it, only just catching it on the line but 10 yards past the goal, he attempts to reach around it and cut it back, he ends up blasting it at the keeper because he can't get the angle to pull it back further... key pass.
Key passes don't directly mean anything, there is zero accountability for how or why someone shoots.
Also corners can count as key passes so if he puts the ball in and someone manages to touch the ball towards the goal... key pass. Someone who, contrary to his form, is both given the most important play making position/area of the pitch and takes most corners, a lot of freekicks and most penalties will have higher stats in all those key areas but it generally says exactly nothing about the quality of chances he one, creates from open play only and two, the quality of the chances he's creating.
A lot of stats are near meaningless without context and comparing them to other players in a similar position without knowing if one player takes all corners/penalties where the player being compared to them takes neither will give a misleading comparison. IE no.10 who takes corners and penalties might have on average 3-4 more goals and 5+ more assists a year than a no.10 who doesn't take penalties or corners.
Same with long passes, was it a 40yard ball up the field for a striker to run on to and creates a good chance, or a 40yrd completely pointless pass from one wing to the other. In general these are the worst and most pointless types of pass. Long floated ball, entire defence of the other team has exactly as much chance to readjust to the other wing and set themselves defensively. Rooney generally does the latter, runs out of ideas, knocks it long, wastes time and kills attack after attack with that style of passing.
Assists/goals still need context, though a pattern of high scoring is useful and stands out regardless of how easy the chances. Ultimately stats are a guide, nothing more or less. You want to compare strikers you use stats to find the top 10 highest scorers then look at all those players and make a decision for yourself about how easy the chances are. Maybe the guy with 30 goals got 7 penalties, 15 tap ins and only a handful of genuinely top quality strikes, his positioning and anticipation inside the 6yr box is great but he's limited and struggles in certain games... could maybe be someone like Giroud. Another striker gets 20, no penalties and has equally good ability to to be in the right place but scores from 30 yards, scores a few by taking on 3-4 players, scores some insane team goals where they are central to all the interplay and gets some of those easier tap ins as well, say Muller. If you went purely with goals scored you might decide Giroud is better than Muller(in some season where those numbers are true), and you'd be wrong.
All stats need context and considering them in context it's easy to see why Rooney can get such numbers, but watching any game with him playing in the last 1.5 and pushing 2 years now you can see that he's playing woeful football and it's easy to see where those numbers come from.
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Yes I know what counts as a key pass and while there are instances like you say, there are just as many which are higher difficult passes. It's not a coincidence that the players with the highest number of key passes in the league are the most creative players.
The point of my post was to show that Rooney's pass completion rate isn't down to him playing easy passes. He plays a high number of difficult passes - crosses, long passes and passes that lead to chances, and still has a decent pass completion rate. If you look at other players in his position, while some have higher numbers of key passes, very few have as good pass completion.
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Thing is a game is not won by 97% passing rate, but by making key moments happen and producing a match winning goal by beating a man and crossing the ball into the 6 yard box.
Something that our young 30 million pound midfielders seem to fail to do.
Is Rooney being forced out of the team due to players like Memphis showing such form that they cannot be dropped or should be starting?
How about essay lindgard? Ashley Young, wham it doesn't Mata? You can't even say that Pogba has positively influenced one single game he's been playing in so far.
So much for a world record signing.
Rooney isn't the player he was. He could look after himself better I agree. He doesn't pick himself though and the biggest issue of them all, no one is making such a strong case to be picked ahead of him despite himself.
Something that our young 30 million pound midfielders seem to fail to do.
Is Rooney being forced out of the team due to players like Memphis showing such form that they cannot be dropped or should be starting?
How about essay lindgard? Ashley Young, wham it doesn't Mata? You can't even say that Pogba has positively influenced one single game he's been playing in so far.
So much for a world record signing.
Rooney isn't the player he was. He could look after himself better I agree. He doesn't pick himself though and the biggest issue of them all, no one is making such a strong case to be picked ahead of him despite himself.
Caporegime
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The coincidence is not that it's the most creative players, the coincidence is they play attacking central mid or no.10, the area of the pitch that requires the most creative passing.
Also the point wasn't taken or made on him just playing easy passes. Someone who is in one of the most crucial or important areas of the pitch gets more of the ball by being in that position. Rooney should be making 80+ passes a match by playing the position he does, 2.4 key passes is an incredibly small number of his total passes. Long passes are EASY, not difficult, something literally only English fans seem to not understand. Hit a ball 10 yards and the receiving player has very little time to change his run or movement to an inaccurate pass, hit it 40 yards, and normally a higher slower ball as well, then the receiving player has 5-6 times as long to adjust his run and due to acceleration and change of direction a player can move many times further in 3-5 seconds than they can in 1-2 seconds. The long passes Rooney does, which is wing to wing usually, are not difficult.
I don't understand your first sentence - are you acknowledging that Rooney does play creative passes?
And lol
You love rewriting history. Please go back and read the post I initially replied to - mmj was claiming his pass completion % was high because he plays safe passes.