Manchester United fans have become accustomed to reading about our beloved players getting slated in the press. Whilst certainly all of our players aren’t angels, any of their wrong doings are put firmly in the spot light. A sending off, a rant at the referee, a bad tackle, a wrongly awarded penalty, are amongst the many things we see highlighted when one of our players screws up. Similar incidents occur up and down the country, but it is our player who will have his face on the back of the tabloids the following day.
Those who read this blog regularly will know I am a massive fan of Wayne Rooney and champion him whenever given the opportunity. Sir Alex Ferguson said that when he first saw him play he looked like a Manchester United player. It’s true. He is immensely talented, is totally driven, loves the game, has fire in his belly, and his appearance on the pitch frequently makes the difference between us losing out and getting a result.
Yet because of his below par performances for his country (which to be fair, could be said of pretty much every player who pulls on an England shirt!) and the self-sacrificing performances for United which cost him the individual glory, he gets quite a bit of stick.
So sit back and enjoy this great piece of writing.
Everyone is wading into The Wild Child. Harry Redknapp would play him on the right. Stick him on the left, barks Neil Warnock. Fabio Capello favours him up front.
The poor kid. With two Barclays Premier League titles and a European Cup slugging it out for space with the wedding pictures at Wayne’s World, the £5million mansion he is building in Bramhall, his career is in crisis.
Bodyswerve two successive PFA young player of the year trophies, the Sir Matt Busby player of the year award and a nomination for the World player of the year, the boy is washed up. At 22. Kaput. Finito.
No matter that he turns up at Carrington every day with the same impish enthusiasm that saw him cultivate his skills on the streets of Croxteth, the Rooney Wrecking Ball has not been operating at full capacity for some time.
Even a straw poll among sympathetic Stretford Enders leaves them scratching their heads. Aston Villa last February, perhaps, when he scored twice in a 4-0 destruction of Martin O’Neill’s upwardly mobile team?
Hold on, how about the 2-0 victory over Roma at Old Trafford four days later? Either way, it was a long time ago. Still, the statistics paint a pretty picture, suggesting that United have a goalscorer of considerable class. In 128 appearances for United before last night, he had scored 53 goals.
In the process he had also taken quite a liking to Portsmouth, rattling in seven goals in 11 games against Harry Redknapp’s side.
Not quite in Cristiano Ronaldo’s company, but impressive, all the same.
So what is it we want from a player who, by common consensus, is the most prodigious talent that the nation has produced since Paul Gascoigne came on as a substitute for Newcastle United and curled a right-foot effort into the back of Oxford United’s net way back in 1985?
Rooney’s touch remains rhythmic, caressing the ball into MySpace, the area immediately in front of his feet, and playing lob wedges to his striker partner Carlos Tevez, across the field to full back Wes Brown or into the path of Paul Scholes.
Then there is the unseen work, the shifts in play that set United apart from the opposition last season and most likely this. He is an unselfish runner, willing to share the workload with his team-mates and always ready to rob lazy defenders on the edge of the area.
The opposition shadow-box him, following his every move and hoping that Rooney does not bob and weave his way into possession. That alone is a substantial weapon for Sir Alex Ferguson.
Certainly, he needs a goalscorer alongside him to gather momentum. Ronaldo will soon be back in this United team, but Rooney should be one up on him already. The Whinger’s absence is a head start for the United striker and he ought to have scored from Wes Brown’s cross midway through the first half last night.
Typical of this engaging United team, they swept the ball across the pitch at will and mesmerised Portsmouth’s defence with a series of crossfield passes.
Pompey were bewildered and Rooney pounced on Brown’s cross. One touch with his right foot, neatly setting up the shortest of backlifts for him to burst the back of the net in the next frame and then David James gratefully gathered his effort snugly in his chest.
A goal would have surely settled the argument. And not just the one taking place on the pitch.
Man Utd News 24/7
I always felt that even though RVN scored a lot of goals, he sort of took goals that maybe team-mates would otherwise have been scoring. With the Roonster, I feel the opposite applies. He plays up front but even though he is not prolific, his all round play brings others in and brings goals from other areas as he pulls opposition defences all over the place
why did everyone in the media just ignore the goal he scored that was wrongly judged offside? I read a few match reports in papers and all of them focussed on his misses rather than the great finish. He was robbed
I agree liam, the run+finish were sublime even if he HAD been offside, but of course it was a perfectly legit goal. He was robbed.
I think most united fans would agree Rooney is the most important player in our team – Simply his presence is enough to positively add to our team, without him even needing to touch the ball.
Cantona had a similar effect but for different reasons.
Fuck everyone who hates my Rooney. There will never be & I repeat, never be another no. 10 nearer than this boy. People will appreciate him much more when he stops pulling on that red shirt. Hail Mighty WAZZA.
@redorded
couldnt agree with you more
We love you Rooney whether they like it or not. You are instrumental to us more than CR7. The record has it that we never lost any match when you are on the field. Who knows,maybe we would have worn the pensioniers if you had not not been injured.
Go ahead son of a manc.
Go ahead the wolf.
Go ahead WR10. We appereciate what you do. We do understand.
To be honest Rooney’s the kind of guy who should be seen and not heard, he went down in my book when I stopped reading about his goals and started reading about his marriage. I thought that Rooney and Ronaldo would be like Giggs and Beckham, one of them good looking, charismatic, always in the gossip sections of the Sun and the other always in the Sport pages, always trying his best and doing what he can for the team. Alas, Rooney wanted a taste of the interviews, fame and gossip and took a leaf out of Beckham’s book rather than Giggs’.
I read an interview a few weeks ago, on the Community Shield day, with Ryan Giggs. An interview with Ryan Giggs isn’t something you read about every day but in this case Ryan, without asking for a fee, spoke about how when he was young he was polishing the older players boots and compared his experiences to Rooney and Ronaldo’s. Pity how much football’s changed. Rooney’s a world class player and certainly doesn’t deserve what the papers continuously say about him but maybe if he told each and every paper and magazine to fuck off and concentrated fully on his football rather than his goals/games ratio I would find that immense respect I once had for him. Out of Rooney or the less talented Tevez it seems that Rooney runs for the ball so he can score, Tevez runs for the ball so he can make Man United score.
PeeJay, you’re being harsh. What any of these overpaid superstars do with their money is their business; all of them are what we might call “A-plus” personalities – driven to excel, well beyond the normal professional athlete which is why they do excel.
When recruiting players, part of the job is to trust the scouts’ vision of their skill but, equally, part of the assessment has to be the player’s character. In guys like Tevez, Rooney, Ronaldo, Ferdinand, Giggs, Scholes, Neville, Anderson, Vidic, and the others on this current squad, and before them Cantona, Stam, RVN, Beckham, Keane and so many others, SAF has been able to get that “character assesment” right BUT when some of them lost that “A-plus drive to excel” and became BigTImeCharlies then it was out the door !
It’s not what these guys do when they’re “off” but, rather, what they do when they’re “on” that’s the key thing to focus on. The days of shining boots is long gone – so, too, is the maximum wage for of indentured servitude. These things always look better in hindsight – which is always 20/20, of course. Keep your eye on the field of play; the rest is just journalists filling in their five hundred words of bafflegab.
i love you wr10, you are my manu superstar..
Even though it was written in The Mail, I am still very pleased to see somebody has decided not to jump on the Roo-bashing band wagon.
I think it was there for all to see on Monday night that Rooney is almost back to his best and I wouldn’t bet against him finding the net against the dippers or rent boys in the next few weeks or so.
I get fed up about people wanting 100% from their players all the time but when they get it the fucking knock it, Rooney has the ability and like Kaka at Milan, Riquelme back at Villarreal, should he have had a team built around him he’d easily carry them. Lampard, Gerrard and Rooney are great for their clubs but for country they don’t fit, the former two more so than the latter, the thing that separates Rooneys performances for England to Lampards and Gerrard at least we get a 100% from him in whatever position he plays and sometimes his work rate pays of (England 1-2 France where he took it upon himself to race down with the ball, into Frances box and then get taken out by Silvestre). I cannot believe how quickly people get on the lads back, England fans need to get behind their team, I might hate Lampard but i’ll cheer him while he’s on the field even if his performances are nonsense and he runs around the midfield waiting for the ball to come to him so he can give it away but booing isn’t going to solve a thing, the country needs to play without pressure ‘cuz we know there’s too much talent for them to suck, it’s why we have these expectations.
Whoever said that Rooney should be seen rather than read about is 100% spot on, watch him with an open mind and just see his commitment and his desire to win no matter what, I don’t care when he dives into a challenge after the ball, at least the foul will get the crowed going and disrupt the opposition.
I am completely flummoxed as to why so much is expected of this young man. Rooney and Tevez are grafters. There wouldn’t have been 42 goals scored by Ronaldo, but for their fantastic ability to be buzzing all over the midfield pulling defences out of shape. It really isn’t Wazza’s fault that, along with Stevie Gerrard, Joe Cole and Rio Ferdinand, the rest of the England team are mediocre. His bad behaviour in an Ingerland uniform has as much to do with the frustration and humiliation he undergoes because of the innate stupidity of the pigshit-thick likes of Heskey, Crouch, Defoe or any other ‘striker’ they throw in next to him. Nasty little Scouser, is he? He makes too much money, does he? His wife doesn’t looklike a Barbie Doll, doesshe? He looks like Schrek, does she? The architecture of his new house is appalling. He sneaks fags, does he? Has a weight problem, does he? Maybe you’d like him better if he didn’t swear at the referees, or spoke in a nice soft London accent like J.T. He’s only been back (and rushed back at that) for a couple of games and the announcers are talking about his being “not fit”, as if he just put a cigarette out in the tunnel on the way into the Pompey game. Try ignoring the crap they write about him. Don’t buy his silly book. England may or may not qualify for the World Cup. Doesn’t matter whether Wazza plays left, right or centre. Forget about him carrying us on his back, though, because he’ll never be Pelé or Armando Diego Maradona. He’s just Our Wazza and he gives 100% on the pitch. I couldn’t ask for more.