Rooney may be the better player attribute wise, but I honestly think Rashford serves as the bigger threat upfront, and not to mention plays better alongside Martial.
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Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 41
- Goals
- 15
- Assists
- 6
- Yellow cards
- 5
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
- Status
Don't you find it fascinating that the same paper was a few days earlier firing shots at him with a potentially libelous, daming accusation about theft is now here telling everyone how great his influence is? Talk about the papers being all over the place flinging dung in all directions. No doubt there will be a few chancers getting in the usual digs about his "PR working overtime" etc.
These idiot journalists vomit up a bunch of garbage and fling it in all directions hoping for a bite.
edit; Yep, like flies to a cow pat.
so what makes him a better player, his atrocious first touch, or his amazing speed? total lack of agility? his fantastic dribbling ability, how he goes past players? or just the fact how he argues with referee everytime he fecks up, workrate? Hold up play? Counterattacking ability? He is fecking useless in all of this, he might have a better vision and shot from distance but all his abilities mentioned let him down so doesnt have time to execute it, experience is so overrated, he fecked up so many times this season it's unbelievable... What makes him more useful player than Rashford for us?
He is still extremely overrated here, his reputation just give some of you hope that he is capable of what he used to be but he's absolutely done and unusable for top football. Rashford on the other hand even very raw player never looked out of place and scored some nice goals against top opponents and created other chances. Ask how many people would start Rooney over Rashford.
Would rather play Depay/Januzaj up front than that dross
What makes him better is his goalscoring instinct and his experience. Rooney is completely past it and will be on an ugly downward slope but Rashford hasn't proven anything on a long term consistency to even be compared with him at the moment. Rashford is a better fit for the club IMHO at the moment because he's so full of energy and fresh but Rooney is currently better. I can understand hatred towards a player but not when hatred makes you lose all perspective.
You described Rooney at his worst in your post and he is often but if you look at him at his current (as in this season) best, he has been more impressive than Rashford.
Wow 3-4 good games and Rashford is better than Rooney now 
I'm sure people like this probably would think Macheda is better than Rooney as well if he went on a similar 2-3 goal streak again
I'm sure people like this probably would think Macheda is better than Rooney as well if he went on a similar 2-3 goal streak again
Start Rooney and sub on Rashford to punish tired defenders. Too bad Rooney is unsubable
The grip on that handshake looked firm, glad he's back to proper fitness.
Rashford is better for the team right now than Rooney and an absolute breath of fresh air not only for the fans, but for another amazing talent in our team, Martial. I'd bet my right arm he wouldn't want Rashford to be pushed out of the team for an experienced, but slow and unskillful striker that is Rooney of today. Yes he went on a run of form, but he also spent months offering us dross. He's a legend, but if we want to actually move forward, he can either accept a squad player role or we sell him.Wow 3-4 good games and Rashford is better than Rooney now
I'm sure people like this probably would think Macheda is better than Rooney as well if he went on a similar 2-3 goal streak again
Goalscoring instinct and experience are vague qualities. What do they actually mean come game time?
If I'm a centre half I'd much rather play against Rooney than Rashford.
No one is arguing about Rashford being better than Rooney. That is ridiculous.
However, the sad truth is that Rashford is more of a threat to defenses than Rooney is at the moment.
However, the sad truth is that Rashford is more of a threat to defenses than Rooney is at the moment.
And this is supposed to be less vague ?
Nope no one is suggesting that as that would be absurd, however its not absurd to suggest that Rashford is the bigger threat since he actually has pace and isn't afraid to take defenders on, something Rooney has seemingly forgotten to do.Wow 3-4 good games and Rashford is better than Rooney now
I'm sure people like this probably would think Macheda is better than Rooney as well if he went on a similar 2-3 goal streak again
What's not vague is actual stats and while Rooney did not have a good season at all, somehow he is still our joint top scorer in PL, but that can be expected given he was starting a lot of games as a CF and extremely low base, he and Martial have only 7 goals each, but what comes as a surprise is that he is our most creative player. He is joint top assister with Mata (4) in PL and he also creates 1.5 chances a game (Mata is next with 1.4).
So even in a bad year if we consider both goals and assists Rooney still comes out on top.
So even in a bad year if we consider both goals and assists Rooney still comes out on top.
The problem is that we've seen it only against the teams that were controlling the game, when we conceded possession and managed to be a force in the counter. You look at other games, Liverpool away in Europa, West Ham, West Brom and Rashford has not exactly been shining then. It's a bi ask of a 18-19 years old of course, but the main thing is that his pace can be usefully utilized against team that want to dominate and control the ball themselves. How he can break through stacked defenses of decent teams, danish ones don't count, remains to be seen.
If you polish a turd for long enough it might gain a little shine. That's how I see Rooney's season. Any other player would have been dropped for a few games but he was still a constant in the team, and eventually hit a short purple patch and then got injured.
In which case let's go by finishing since that's ultimately going to be the most pivotal thing we get right in those games you've described. Rooney's conversion rate has been poor scuppering chance after chance, compared to Rashford who's been pretty stellar in dealing with chances.
Th real question of course is why could not anybody else muster anything better?
I honestly can't see much improvement from him at this stage in his career.
Intrigued as to what is happening with him, particularly if another manager comes in.
Intrigued as to what is happening with him, particularly if another manager comes in.
Finishing is important, but it's not the only thing. How his finishing gave Rashford any edge in a game against Watford, he looked completely out of place and useless until LVG moved him on the wing when he could have shown his pace.
Finishing did not exactly helped him.
It is less vague.
When a player is finished we no longer talk about pace, dribbling ability, workrate and movement. We start talking about these intangibles such as "experience." Always happens.
When 18 and 19 year olds are scoring at the same rate as a 30 year old any talk of goalscoring instinct and experience is pretty much invalid.
Ah come on now, in order to make a proper and fair comparison you would need to look at a similar or close number of games. This is a narrow minded way of looking at things. Rashford's goals will calm down just like they naturally did with Martial when he was a on a good scoring run at the start of his Utd career.
I cannot believe I'm actually defending Rooney right now
Found myself in a similar situation the other day with Fellaini.Ah come on now, in order to make a proper and fair comparison you would need to look at a similar or close number of games. This is a narrow minded way of looking at things. Rashford's goals will calm down just like they naturally did with Martial when he was a on a good scoring run at the start of his Utd career.
I cannot believe I'm actually defending Rooney right now
I know what you mean with Rashford but we can judge Martial and Rooney on a similar number of games. Scored the same haven't they in the league?
Maybe, I don't know stats specifically but there is no debate anyway, I'll go with Martial everyday as would most fans. Hopefully Martial/Rashford develop a great partnership for a few seasons.
Who exactly was required/expected to muster any better? Martial is probably his closest competitor in an attacking sense and he's 20. My question is why didn't LVG bring in anybody that could challenge Rooney in terms of status. Even SAF realized years ago that he couldn't be relied on to win you a title, so he bought RVP. LVG put all of his eggs in one basket regarding Rooney and it was downright daft.
Mata for example. In terms of creativity.
As for squad imbalance i do agree, i think our last season squad had too many CFs and not enough CMs, yet this year LVG managed to turn situation on it's head which is rather stupid achievement from him and Woody.
Yet under Fergie Rooney was always in the starting line-up bar that home Real game which we lost anyway. If Fergie really thought that Rooney was past it he would not play him in the most games, it's not like we had not had cover in Kagawa for nub 10, Chicha as a second forward, yet Fergie played Rooney literally until the title was secured.
Fergie was clearly gearing up to get rid of Rooney in 2013. He dropped him from the biggest game of the season, stuck him in central midfield when the title was virtually won and then for his last game at OT dropped him completely from the squad and then revealed he'd asked to leave.
He left it on a plate for Moyes to come in and get rid. But of course Davey had other ideas, terrible ideas. Like giving Rooney that contract.
He left it on a plate for Moyes to come in and get rid. But of course Davey had other ideas, terrible ideas. Like giving Rooney that contract.
Doesn't mean he didn't think he was done. Fergie probably did not want to upset the team's rhythm. As far as he was concerned it was team over players, now it's Rooney over team.
If that was true he would have dropped him for more that just one game, which we lost and in which Fergie still relied on him by subbing him on when his initial plan to 0-0 was done.
It kinda does, if you think the player is done, you don't play him. Rooney was featuring in almost all the games.
It's tough to know of course what would have happened but Fergie's attacking reinforcements in Kagawa and Persie were, well Kagawa was a flop, he just did not do anything apart a hat trick against a relegated side, Van Persie only managed one good season and that was it. So i don;t think the situation would have been as clear cut as some people try to make it look.
We were competing for trophies and Rooney getting dropped leads the stories being leaked to the media and a whole disruptive clamour to get him back in the team. You just have to look at the one match LVG dropped him for this season when the narrative started immediately that we need the captain and best player on the pitch, how dare LVG bench him. The aftermath of Moyes saying RVP was the best striker and the leaked stories was another example. Sir Alex waited until the end of the season and then threw him under the bus for Moyes to finish the job, which he bottled.
We're talking about someone that announced he wanted to leave before a Champions League match.
Its evident that SAF wanted to get rid of Rooney.
That's rather strange and unrealistic scenario. Fegie never cared much for media pressure, and players in who he did not believe in or had genuine conflict with simply did not play. Look at Roy Keane, he was out during mid-season, so all these "Fergie wanted to keep the rhythm of the team", "Fergie did not want press attention" is just nonsense theories. The only possible real reason for Rooney playing as much as he did since that Real game is that Fergie thought that at the time United with Rooney had more chances to win games than without him. Which points out that Fergie rated him as a player and relied on him to get us the title. Now what to do next is another story of course.
Just to post my opinion about the current and future of Rooney's situation, not the past one.
I think there are two points. The first point is replacement and can we get the player. I am not against us getting rid of Rooney, he is clearly not in his prime, that's not in debate, but the main thing is who is going to replace him. If it's Ibra, he is even older, does okay in CL bu playing in Prem and French league is very different, will he be better alternative i don't know. Higuain would be an absolute flop i am sure of it. Cavani, well if Ibra's gone i don't see PSG letting him go as well. Aubameyang would be a terribly overpriced buy and i am not convinced he would be able to replicate this year's form, esp in United. And there is little guarantee we can get any of them. Some people i'm told, i was not on the forum at the time, were happy with Falcao transfer last year. I thought it would be a disastrous flop straight away, which he has proven to be. And the fact that we were forced to risk and take such a player with his big wages and even pay a hefty 6m loan fee, probably like one of the highest loan fees in football history, tells me we had a genuine problem of attracting quality players upfront. We know they are the most costly, coveted and hard to get. Martial transfer tells me the same, while i am happy with the player, we basically gave Monaco a fortune, that is the kind of money that almost buy you a Suarez, Bale type of player, not a very promising youngster. Again, because we could not get any attacking reinforcements the whole summer and were forced into action, so forced to overpay twice, three times much his value. Just to get the transfer done. So not really a good tracking record, right? Add to that Di Maria and Mata that look more and more like a panic buys and what do we have? Players that were not needed by their clubs and still we had to overpay for both, a very expensive youngster, a injury hit CF who was way past it from French league. So the reality is that for three years now, it's clearly not a coincidence, we never bought an established attacking player that was not for sale and that the club would prefer to keep. That's sadly a fact.
Will it be any different this summer, without possibly CL? I am not sure. People who are saying "Rooney off, Griezmann and Aubameyang on" are not thinking straight. It's just wishful, nothing more.
But there is a second point which i feel even is more pertinent one. In my opinion, if we daft Rooney out, we need a top CF. But we also need top attacking player, like an AM, whether he will be a central AM like a number 10 or a right winger i don't know, but we do need someone who can create chances. So the question is can we get both? My opinion is that it is highly unlikely. So if we want to get any really proven and top player in attack we need to choose, are we going after a striker and then rely on Martial on the wing, Lingard and others to provide the chances for him or are we going after a creative player. My preference is to get a creative player and then keep Rooney, than get rid of Rooney and sign a new CF while being stuck with our current creative players.
I think there are two points. The first point is replacement and can we get the player. I am not against us getting rid of Rooney, he is clearly not in his prime, that's not in debate, but the main thing is who is going to replace him. If it's Ibra, he is even older, does okay in CL bu playing in Prem and French league is very different, will he be better alternative i don't know. Higuain would be an absolute flop i am sure of it. Cavani, well if Ibra's gone i don't see PSG letting him go as well. Aubameyang would be a terribly overpriced buy and i am not convinced he would be able to replicate this year's form, esp in United. And there is little guarantee we can get any of them. Some people i'm told, i was not on the forum at the time, were happy with Falcao transfer last year. I thought it would be a disastrous flop straight away, which he has proven to be. And the fact that we were forced to risk and take such a player with his big wages and even pay a hefty 6m loan fee, probably like one of the highest loan fees in football history, tells me we had a genuine problem of attracting quality players upfront. We know they are the most costly, coveted and hard to get. Martial transfer tells me the same, while i am happy with the player, we basically gave Monaco a fortune, that is the kind of money that almost buy you a Suarez, Bale type of player, not a very promising youngster. Again, because we could not get any attacking reinforcements the whole summer and were forced into action, so forced to overpay twice, three times much his value. Just to get the transfer done. So not really a good tracking record, right? Add to that Di Maria and Mata that look more and more like a panic buys and what do we have? Players that were not needed by their clubs and still we had to overpay for both, a very expensive youngster, a injury hit CF who was way past it from French league. So the reality is that for three years now, it's clearly not a coincidence, we never bought an established attacking player that was not for sale and that the club would prefer to keep. That's sadly a fact.
Will it be any different this summer, without possibly CL? I am not sure. People who are saying "Rooney off, Griezmann and Aubameyang on" are not thinking straight. It's just wishful, nothing more.
But there is a second point which i feel even is more pertinent one. In my opinion, if we daft Rooney out, we need a top CF. But we also need top attacking player, like an AM, whether he will be a central AM like a number 10 or a right winger i don't know, but we do need someone who can create chances. So the question is can we get both? My opinion is that it is highly unlikely. So if we want to get any really proven and top player in attack we need to choose, are we going after a striker and then rely on Martial on the wing, Lingard and others to provide the chances for him or are we going after a creative player. My preference is to get a creative player and then keep Rooney, than get rid of Rooney and sign a new CF while being stuck with our current creative players.
Answer just get Ibra on a free then focus on RW. Keeping Rooney doesnt really serve any purpose
heh, Rooney supporters were all "let's see now how we do without him" giddying themselves up for an i-told-you-so-ing and watching us welcome him back with open arms hoping he would rescue us from 10th place.
Looks like we've done ok since, certainly no worse and gained the confirmation of a future prospect. Rooney back in the line up is looking to the past yet again
Let's hope we get rid in the summer or bench at most for him.
Looks like we've done ok since, certainly no worse and gained the confirmation of a future prospect. Rooney back in the line up is looking to the past yet again
Let's hope we get rid in the summer or bench at most for him.
And Ibra at 34-35 is better? I doubt it. And can we get him? It will take a massive salary and signing-on fee for him to even consider United and still i would not rate our chances of doing the deal above 50%.
As for Rooney, i would like to see how he will do in a properly structured team. The sole fact that Rooney is leading in terms of creativity and scroring in league is telling me, that in a more direct, attacking side he could do much better.
But if we get Ibra and then a good AM/RW i am not against letting Rooney go. However given how our transfers went in the last years i think that would not happen.
He'll be here next season... Sir Bobby's record and all that.
The other questions are harder to answer but this one is easy, Ibra is a much better player than Rooney, and is still in top form, Rooney has been declining for 4 seasons now.A change in team set up wont alter the fact Rooney's legs have gone, he has no pace, can't turn properly and can't run with the ball.
I know many people say that stats don't tell the whole story but IMO, they don't really lie either. Your second point is almost stating that Rooney doubles up as a top striker and a top AM which is just far out. Rooney's ability as an AM is just exaggerated. Despite Mata's lack of physicality he outshines in that department. Rooney is of no use to us sadly and it's time to move on.
http://www.squawka.com/comparison-m...pletion/key_passes/assists/chances_created#90
The whoscored provide a different calculation of key passes, on per game basis Rooney is just in front. But even if we take this squawka data, Mata played in a position that allows to create more, an yet he is losing in the assists, while actually taking more set pieces than Rooney i believe. But not only that, his advantage in key passes and chances created is virtually non-existent and given his position it should be more substantial. So based on this data Rooney looks like a more creative player.
That is if Rooney has stayed up top as you suggest. Rooney has spent the last year gardening between the centre circle and the 18 yard box!
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