We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

[Ray de Galles]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote:

1 goal in 11 World Cup Finals games is a pretty pitiful statistic and dwarfed by Charlton and, particularly, Lineker's figures.

.

you do know he broke his foot six weeks before the 2006 world cup, and did his ankle eight weeks before the 2010 world cup and probably shouldn't have played in either of them.

Yes, well aware.

[garcia]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

If wayne rooney wanted to burnish his reputation through playing international football, he should really have chosen a better country to do it for. That whole england thing is cursed for him.

always the victim, never his fault?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Harry Truscott wrote:

1 goal in 11 World Cup Finals games is a pretty pitiful statistic and dwarfed by Charlton and, particularly, Lineker's figures.

.

you do know he broke his foot six weeks before the 2006 world cup, and did his ankle eight weeks before the 2010 world cup and probably shouldn't have played in either of them.

Yes, well aware.

So why did you raise the point? He didn't do very well at two tournaments he shouldn't really have played at.

Garcia, for all of their star players england have always played terrible football in possession. Combine that with absurd levels of expectations, and playing for england is always going to be used as a rod to beat players.

[Ray de Galles]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote:

1 goal in 11 World Cup Finals games is a pretty pitiful statistic and dwarfed by Charlton and, particularly, Lineker's figures.

.

you do know he broke his foot six weeks before the 2006 world cup, and did his ankle eight weeks before the 2010 world cup and probably shouldn't have played in either of them.

Yes, well aware.

So why did you raise the point?

Because how he has performed at what is generally taken to be the pinnacle of international football (whatever the background reasons for the paucity of those performances) is germane to the question "Will he be looked back on as England's greatest-ever striker?"

Obvious, really.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Charlton wasn't a striker. Neither, one could argue, is Rooney.

[Various Artist]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Just the point I was thinking needed raising, about Charlton at any rate. No matter how germane the observation that Rooney has spent much of his time dropping deep to look for the ball or been deliberately played out on the wing, Bobby Charlton never played as an out-an-out striker, did he? In that respect he was the anti-Lineker, or indeed the anti-Greaves, both goal poachers supreme. He tends to be thought of as an attacking midfielder, perhaps. Never having seen much of that era at all, did Charlton simply play in what we'd now call "the hole" behind the front two as a rule?

Interesting to discover from looking up the stats, Charlton took only 38 games to score his first 25 England goals, and when he broke the previous record it stood at just 30, held jointly by Nat Lofthouse and Tom Finney. I always wondered if Greaves ever held the record, and seemingly yes he did overtake Charlton as a result of his unmatched scoring rate, but Charlton eventually took it back again thanks to his greater longevity in the England side.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Well, he's gone and done it, so it's out there. Wayne Rooney is England's all-time top scorer. Fitting, in a way, that he should secure the record by smashing home a penalty after a dive by Raheem Sterling.

[Jah Womble]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

1 goal in 11 World Cup Finals games is a pretty pitiful statistic and dwarfed by Charlton and, particularly, Lineker's figures.

I'm actually more astonished that Rooney's played eleven World Cup finals games.

[Borracho]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Interesting that Rooney's record in European Championships, which I think we can all agree is a higher-standard competition than the World Cup (though perhaps not for much longer), is markedly superior to Lineker's.

Rooney: 5 and a bit games, 4 goals
Lineker: 6 games, 0 goals

[Jah Womble]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

He's scored five in his two Euro tournaments, tbf...

[Borracho]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

There's no way he can claim that second one against Switzerland. It hit the post, came back out, then the keeper's head diverted it in.

[Jah Womble]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

I'd perhaps agree with you, but yer record books have always credited the boy Rooney with the goal.

Those tend to be awarded to the striker: David Bentley scored a similar goal from a free-kick for my lot against Wigan (during that 9-1 gubbing in 2009), but was eventually allowed to add it to his rather meagre collection.

[Borracho]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

The record books can kiss my arse. They persisted in giving Ronaldo that Costa Rican own goal at the 2002 World Cup too.

Rooney will score a few more before the curtain comes down so it doesn't really matter either way. But I think it's self-evidently silly to be giving someone a goal when the ball is heading directly away from the net and then knocked in by someone else.

Scotland got one like that against the CIS at Euro 92. It was either McStay or McClair who got credited with it, even though it was effectively a diving header by Dmitri Kharin.

[Mumpo]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

The fact that the record-equalling and breaking goals were both penalties kind of took the shine off the achievement anyway.

I'd have been impressed if Rooney had offered last night's pen to someone else.

[Ray de Galles]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Green Calx wrote: Interesting that Rooney's record in European Championships, which I think we can all agree is a higher-standard competition than the World Cup (though perhaps not for much longer), is markedly superior to Lineker's.

Rooney: 5 and a bit games, 4 goals
Lineker: 6 games, 0 goals

Do we all agree that it "a higher standard competition than the World Cup" in Lineker's day?

[Ray de Galles]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Green Calx wrote: The record books can kiss my arse. They persisted in giving Ronaldo that Costa Rican own goal at the 2002 World Cup too.

Rooney will score a few more before the curtain comes down so it doesn't really matter either way. But I think it's self-evidently silly to be giving someone a goal when the ball is heading directly away from the net and then knocked in by someone else.

Scotland got one like that against the CIS at Euro 92. It was either McStay or McClair who got credited with it, even though it was effectively a diving header by Dmitri Kharin.

This has always wound the fuck out of me too, Rio Ferdinand was awarded a goal against Denmark in the 2002 World Cup when he headed the across the six yard line and it came off a defender at a right angle in to the net.

[Borracho]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Harry Truscott wrote:

Interesting that Rooney's record in European Championships, which I think we can all agree is a higher-standard competition than the World Cup (though perhaps not for much longer), is markedly superior to Lineker's.

Rooney: 5 and a bit games, 4 goals
Lineker: 6 games, 0 goals

Do we all agree that it "a higher standard competition than the World Cup" in Lineker's day?

One of the two World Cups Lineker played in was the poorest since at least 1962.

In 1990 the top scorer was a Juventus reserve who never achieved anything ever again, and a 38-year-old who'd been playing his football in Reunión was made to look like a world-beater.

[Ray de Galles]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

And the following Euros were won by a team that were meant to be on the beach.

I would still say that Lineker's England career massively outshines Rooney's so far.

Jimmy Greaves is England's best ever striker though.

[Patrick Thistle]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

One thing Wayne has had to put up with that Bobby, Jimmy, or even Gary, didn't is the celebrity culture of being a top-flight footballer.

Not saying that makes him a better player than those three, but given how footballers end up as much on the front pages as the back pages these days adds to the pressure on him compared to the others. He has also become a Mock the Week staple joke due to the Granny thing (the other staple jokes being Eric Pickles / Eamonn Holmes is fat and Scotland is the most unhealthy country in the world).

As noted above, it did seem fitting that his 50th goal was a soft penalty, won by Raheem Sterling rather that conceded by the defender. That's the game in a nutshell now.

I'm not sure how Bobby, Jimmy or Gary would have coped in this era. Jimmy, in particular, would probably have ended up in celebrity rehab.

[Borracho]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Lineker's resorted to a superinjunction or two in his time.

Google "Carolyn Pick".

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

In the period 82-94, when the Euros were top 8, and the World Cup 24 teams, the Euros were self-evidently a stronger tournament. One had 7 European qualifiers plus hosts, the other 14.

[Various Artist]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Mumpo wrote: I'd have been impressed if Rooney had offered last night's pen to someone else.

I was thinking at the time that it would have presented an interesting scenario if Kane had already scored two, not one — would Rooney have had the class, or perhaps the self-belief, to hand over the ball to him for a hat-trick penalty? As it is, it's probably best for England that he's got it out of the way now, for the same reason that I'd have kept him on all game against San Marino given the choice: if it had started to become something that was hanging over him, it's all too easy to imagine it turning into this huge mental obstacle and his performances going down the toilet under the strain of it, shackled by the weight of impending history. You could see by his reaction last night how much it meant to him to take the record, so that monkey's off his back at least.

It's tempting to wonder what Greaves could have done at the 1966 World Cup, if only he'd been picked. Does anyone know why it was such a straight and irrevocable either/or choice between him and Hurst — could they not play together instead of Hurst and Hunt, for instance? The idea of those two leading the line with Charlton behind them is mouthwatering.

GC, I think that was indeed McClair (not McStay) whose 'goal' you were talking about vs the CIS in '92 — it came up only a day or two ago in the 'Players who've never scored' thread in reference to Brian McClair's lengthy initial international drought.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

If rooney had given the penalty to someone else he'd have been crucified for being mentally weak.

I'm not sure that lineker and rooney are comparable. All lineker ever did was stand on the edge of the six yard box and wait for peter beardsley to give him the ball. It's unclear if he ever completed a pass in his career.

[Borracho]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

I was getting confused in my middle age. McStay's one was a deflection too, in off one of the limbs of Kakhaber Tskhadadze.

Scotland got all the luck that day which had gone against them in the Germany game, too late to save them of course.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

International Velvet Android wrote:

Does anyone know why it was such a straight and irrevocable either/or choice between him and Hurst — could they not play together instead of Hurst and Hunt, for instance?

Ramsey had, indeed, been juggling the three around in the warm-up games. Remember this was Ramsey's rigid 4-4-2, there was no way the three could all play. Greaves and Hurst played together against Yugoslavia, when Greaves scored, and against Denmark, where neither did. Ramsey started the World Cup with Greaves and Hunt. Hunt scored 3 goals in the group phase, Greaves none, so there was no way Hunt was losing his place. Greaves got injured in the last of those (a tackle that needed 14 stitches)so for the QF against Argentina Hurst came in and scored the only goal in that game. After that, Ramsey wasn't going to upset a winning side (and I'm not sure Greaves recovered from his knock anyway).