Between Boxing Day and New Year, Wayne Rooney, Darron Gibson and Jonny Evans went out for a meal and a few drinks with their WAGs.
The three players were dropped for our next game against Blackburn, amidst rumours that they were unable to train properly, presumably due to a hangover.
United went on to lose that game, with Rafael and Park starting as our central midfielders. When you consider United then lost the title on goal difference, that home defeat to a team that was eventually relegated is fairly painful to recall. After going 2-0 down, Dimitar Berbatov scored two goals in ten minutes to level the score, only for Hanley to score a late winner.
Wayne Rooney, in his new book, has reflected on what happened, suggesting the high standards of the manager at this club is what lead him to being dropped.
I’m happy at Manchester United, despite the downs that sometimes take place at a football club. Like when we stuff Wigan 5-0 on Boxing Day. I go out for dinner with a few of the lads, and our other halves, to a hotel. The next day, the manager pulls me up and tells me he’s not happy and doesn’t feel I’ve trained properly. He fines me, but there’s worse to come. I’m dropped for the next game, on New Year’s Eve, against Blackburn. At a lot of clubs, people wouldn’t bat an eyelid at players having a night out six days before a game. But that’s the difference at Manchester United and a mark of the high standards the manager demands. It’s a big deal, another lesson learned.
The following week I had to sit in the stands and watch us lose 3-2 to Blackburn. It’s the worst feeling when that happens. It was terrible. Blackburn looked certainties for relegation, yet we were worse than them. As I watched I feel desperate and helpless, just like all the other United fans watching the defeat unfold.
Man Utd News 24/7
Spot on quote Scott:
“At a lot of clubs, people wouldn’t bat an eyelid at players having a night out six days before a game. But that’s the difference at Manchester United and a mark of the high standards the manager demands. It’s a big deal, another lesson learned.”
A bit of humility, taken with a bit of salt and cold water. Get in Wayne.
Still feel that bit of shenanigans cost us the title last year. Bad from Rooney, not so hot from the manager as well. Live and learn? Well it might have cost us #20
Anyway, All to do now….. again!
Sir Bobby Charlton on Rooney for England:
“It is up to the England manager to find a way of bringing the best out of him at international level, and how best to handle him. He is handled very well at Manchester United, and I am sure it will evolve with England and if that is the case I feel sure that Wayne is the player most capable of breaking my record of 49 goals, which has stood the test of time.”
“If anyone is going to get the record then it’s going to be Wayne Rooney. He’s good enough and he is still young enough. No matter how much I might like being the top goal scorer, I will be pleased when someone breaks it, particularly if it’s Wayne. I would congratulate them. It is certainly a record to treasure.”
Heskey doesn’t play for Blackburn, it was Yakubu you were probably thinking of. The scorers in that match were:
Yakubu 16′ (pen), 51
Berbatov 52′, 62′
Hanley 80′
Fergie did what he had to do and i’m glad Rooney took the punishment like a man. We might have lost the title but it is always nice to see a little principle here and there. I also don’t think the blackburn game lost us the title. The Everton game lost us the title. followed by the Wigan game.
Also Grant hanley scored the winner not Heskey.
Sir Bobby Charlton for you. Somehow wayne seems a poor heir to that legacy but Sir Bobby is one of a kind. Wayne has given us a lot of moments to cherish though and wont begrudge him the occasional lapse. Its the contract shenanigans that stick in my mind. As Berba would say lost that little bit of extra respect that I had for Wayne boy. He is still a red though and should always have the support of all reds for as long as he does justice to the club.
I would say at 26yo and sitting on 29 goals, it is far from certainty that Wayne makes 49 goals at international level. I would actually have to say there is zero chance on present form.
The facts are that Wayne plays deeper then he did and is often caught running all over the park. Plus the fact that england don’t get that deep in competitions giving him few opportunities/year. Then there are the bans that aren’t really going away are they. If he gets a major injury then there is more pressure still.
To get 20 more goals, Wayne is going to have to completely change his mind set and commit to mature performances if he is going to get anywhere near 49. Look what people were saying about Michael Owen a few years back.
Simple reasoning suggests this is nowhere close to a certainty.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/sep/05/wayne-rooney-training-seven-pounds-overweight
nice extract. A little concerned after the admission of how his body has been taking a battering.
Do think wayne burns hot and cold like most strikers, but when he is hot he is flaming. For england, with all the youngsters coming through in midfield, he should really be playing further forward. Felt the same for United until Van Persie arrived. Thought Rooney was going to head for another season approaching thirty goals but Van Persie’s arrival might force him out onto the wing where he doesn’t score as much. We still don’t know if the two can play together or complement each other so the converse might well be true. He is theoretically approaching his peak years and he has a team thats built around him. HIs current fitness notwithstanding if he does stick to United i think there is avery good chance that Sir Bobbys United record in the League atleast will prolly be overtaken. As for the international record that depends entirely on how well England play and what formation they adopt.
What a horrible result that was. A huge setback.
But as bad as it was, Heskey didn’t score the winner Scott.
Funny how a player admitting he made a mistake, got punished for it and him learning a valuable lesson is reported as ‘rooney reveals boxing day bust up’ by many dailies!
I thought l was going 2 miss u Berba but no, not after those SAF comments.
@Costas
I thought it was funny seeing that. If Heskey scored a winner against us, it must really be a horrible day.
I believe it was Yakubu?
No marq m8 grant hanley, yak had the other 2
@Marq
Yakubu scored their first 2 goals. Grant Hanley scored the winner in that corner after DDG failed to knock it away.
This is the closest Heskey came to scoring against us:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVRCT67zI_k
I don’t think Heskey’s ever played for Blackburn!
Why can’t he say i fucked up,has to throw in most clubs it wouldn’t have mattered,unless Sir Alex didn’t tell him he knew the rules and broke them so why even throw in that line
Anyone know who Wayne Kerr is
In one way i understand him, in other i understand SAF…we all know what happend with Beckahm…
It is good that player want to play, that he feel desperate at bench, that he has fire. But you dont need to much that you form goes down, that you lose focus, that you start to think about everything else, except football.
But on the other side, if any player has a great status at club is Rooney. He wanted to go, SAF forgive him, he didnt play well, SAF gave him to play…
But i have a feeling that SAF is going to sell him.
wayne – the biggest WayneKerr (Wanker) on this site is ‘Robbo’.
He is a cowardly sniper.
Grant hanley scored that winner, no heskey
Heskey got raped after scoring a goal on fifa
Some no-mark City fans have got #ThingsBetterThanPhilJones trending on Twitter. Basically all slagging him off and saying he’s shit.
Give it 3/4 years when he’s learned his trade and is routinely raping their post-FFP gaggle of has-beens and we’ll see who’s fucking laughing then.
@kanchelskis
That’s rich coming from the fans whose team employs Stefan Savic.
@Costas
Lily Savic has gone. went to Fiorentina as part of the Nastasic deal, unfortunately.
I think, moreover, it’s rich coming from fans whose team actually wanted to sign Phil Jones. As did Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea.
Wayne rooney
possesses the ability to look like both Shrek and a potato, yet potatoes and Shrek look nothing alike
DreadedRed ok mate thanks just woke up didn’t put it together,i guess cheap shots are easier than intelligent discussion,now would that fit into the Cowardly Lion or the Scarecrow catogory
I don’t know where Scott’s got this Emile Heskey thing from. He wasn’t even at Blackburn then. Or ever.
Maybe he’s getting mixed up with Yakubu, who scored the first two. But a) he didn’t score the third and b) that’s pretty racist.
@kanchelskis
Ah, sorry. I wasn’t aware of that swap. It’s a shame. I was a fan of Savic. Fuck them. They’ve been on the receiving end of similar jokes for decades. Now they are trying to act cute themselves. They also mock Rooney and I seem to remember some of them with Rooney tattoos and shirts during ambition gate.
@Costas
You see this gem?
http://7cantonas.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Screen-shot-2012-08-17-at-07.27.26-300×231.png
Woops!
I’m not sure who started the trend #thingbetterthanphiljones but I think the blue moon brigade might have had a hand on it
But whoever its I’m not impressed
Jonesy is the future england and man utd captain.
Crazy bitters
We can’t look at specific games that we dropped points and say, we could have won the title because of this and that. It’s the total at the end that counts and there were many occasions where we dropped points. Last season is over, let’s move on to this season, now…..but I do bloody hate these International weekends, don’t you?
@Unitedforeva
Yes, there will always be points dropped. But there are instances in which the circumstances in which points are dropped are particularly infuriating.
A home game against a team which went on to get relegated, with your best player in exile, and Park and Rafael inexplicably paired in CM, is one of them.
Being 4-2 up in the last 7 minutes of a home game, and not taking all 3 points, is another.
wayne – he’s in the cowardly scarecrow category. He throws bricks over the fence, and runs.
Speaking of witch, I’m outa here!
Ángelo Henríquez Officially a Manchester United Player http://t.co/du3fWyIS
What a WANKER. Can’t wait to sell him now we’ve got RVP. Still never have and never will forgive him for the way he treated my club two years ago. And then he goes and costs us the league. Prick.
@kanchelskis
Haha! I knew one of those giddy idiots would do that. Of course if you ask Mancini, they were never interested. In him or in Rooney.
As for the Blackburn game, I just think it showed a lack of seriousness on our part. A team like ours should never be in a position to have Rafa and Park in midfield, Berba marking Samba and Carrick following Yakubu. And even after we battled hard to equalize, we still lost.City didn’t drop 3 points in such stupid fashion. Add the Everton game to the mix and I think it’s fair to say that our Old Trafford performances cost us the title.
@keano86
Oh don’t be ridiculous. Rooney ‘cost us the league’? How many points did he win us with his goals?
Did Rafael ‘cost us the league’ with his defending in the closing stages vs Everton at OT? Did Evra ‘cost us the league’ by not scoring his header at 4-2?
And ask yourself this. Would Fergie have dropped Rooney for his indiscretion if we’d been playing a stronger team. He took the calculated gamble of punishing a key player, while putting out a team he thought could still win the game. It backfired. Yes, Rooney must shoulder some responsibility, but so must the manager.
Zibbie will kick your ass @keano
Not to mention, of course, that we scored 2 goals that game, which should be enough to win a home game. It was the defence (or the lack of it) that ballsed up and conceded 3.
Utd had a ton of injuries and it was DDG’s worst game for the club,a Perfect Storm
What did Rooney do wrong fuck all .
Gotta love city fans, they still fail to grasp that everthing united are they aspire to be. to mock the signing of phil jones is laughable i beleive 100% that given the specified role in which he can further develope is game, he has the capacity to be better than any of their english players
The 7 pounds comment wasn’t from this season, but even if it was, as an Athlete Rooney could run and diet that fat off in 7 days. Especially with a personal trainer, a personal dietician, a personal cook, and his own set of keys to Carrington!
Hopefully Rooney will be as candid about being out of shape THIS season. He does rise to the occasion when backed into a corner and I’ll always respect him for that. Somewhere under that flab he has a real fighting spirit that matches his undoubted talent and thats what we want to see – not him huffing and puffing after 20 mins like a father in his forties on Sports Day.
Ferguson showed his class by letting Rooney start against Everton even though he was overweight, and he showed it again by immediately dropping him. These are the tough decisions the best managers make, and Charlton is spot on – when you’re working with class players the buck has to stop with the manager. Long may that traditional continue at United.
@Bubsy babes – I rate Jones higher than Rodwell mate, and I don’t rate Milner or Barry at all! Jones is another lad who will strengthen us when he returns, and he’s still a kid.
@ Keano
Get over it. You really should move on from that.
@United till I die
So true. Wazza was obviously out of shape coming back. It cost him half to a full step in pace at least. Ultimately I am hopeful it all comes good. Wazza is able to recognize his errors and improve. He will again.
I think the signing of Jones is the right thing given rio and vidic are in their 30s, jones, smalling and evans will learn from them and ultimatelly replace them. Fergi needs to do the same in CM. I would say a lot of teams have better CM than us.
United till i die
Totally agree m8 jones everytime, has you say with the capacity to grow he’s still a young lad, if centre half is the postion in which he makes his own then add lescott to that too.
hahahahah Proverb your potato Shrek comment cracked me up mate!
In a weird weird weird way I’m glad Fergie’s principle is bigger than the title.
Even tho trust me the manner in which we lose the tile IS painful. But this just shows me how the gaffer wouldn’t be bullied out of his way by ANYONE. (I hope including the Glazers too)