Rooney

[longeared]

All this discussion of Rooney forgets the time he RUINED Mothering Sunday by saying "fucking what" into a telly camera at West Ham.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

haha, my profile picture is of wayne rooney sucking a giant lollipop, and my cover picture is Big Dave's gusset's drawing of luis suarez as princess Diana. I decided to embrace the inevitable and shaved my head in 2000, when I was in my final year in college. It's an unfortunate choice of words.

The thing is that I have an issue with is this Idea that Man Utd and England's record goalscorer could have achieved more. It does rather underplay what he did actually achieve. I mean aside from the attractions of playing in a less challenging league, with a team that wasn't going to be in a rebuilding phase, but a) he was captain of one of the biggest clubs in the world. b) for two of those years he may literally have been the only English person who watched mid nineties Ajax, and knew who or what Louis Van Gaal actually was or what he was trying to do. It's also worth remembering that Wayne rooney only derived a relatively small proportion of his income from actually playing football. Something that never really enters into angry discussions about how much he earns at man utd is the sheer scale of his commercial contracts. He may look like a punch cartoon of an irishman, but He is still one of the Biggest commercial stars in world football. the massive overwhelming majority of people who watch english football don't live in england, and People outside of England have a rather different attitude towards Wayne Rooney. They miss out on a lot of the weirdness that surrounds him in the UK.

[Patrick Thistle]

A lot of that raised expectation is down to the blistering hype around him at the start of his career. There are loads of players for whom the reverse is true - people are amazed they achieved what they did in the game, although objectively they are decent players.

If you contrast him with Giggs, there was always that question of 'What could he have achieved with England?' Rooney is kind of the answer to that.

[Sam]

The raised expectations only got worse with the hat trick on his debut after that massive (for a teenager, at the time) transfer fee, too. If he'd been a bit crap on his debut he'd have probably found it easier going. (I'm joking, I hope that's obvious.)

But bearing in mind there are people who blame Lionel Messi for Argentina not winning the World Cup three years ago, it shouldn't come as a surprise that lots of folk think Rooney ought to have done better at international level.

[Lobachevsky]

Remember watching him playing number 10 role as a 22/23 year old at white Hart Lane. He played like teddy Sheringham with added pace and power. He had a gift for finding space and looked on a different level to everyone else on the pitch.

It was one of the best performances I've seen. He was pulling the strings for giggs and Ronaldo.

He was probably at his peak at around that age.

[ursus arctos]

Welcome Canal du Midi.

Others will be along shortly to hound you about favourite biscuit and the like, but don't let them interfere with your flow.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

The advertising expert who was given the job of turning a profit out of Wayne Rooney's image rights certainly had their work cut out. Although I do recall one of the first products Man United endorsed with him in were a brand of crisps that were called "Mister Potato".

[Antepli Ejderha]

Welcome Canal du Midi.

Others will be along shortly to hound you about favourite biscuit and the like, but don't let them interfere with your flow.

Welcome from me too. So what's your favourite biscuit? Is it a jaffa cake?

[Nocturnal Submission]

Easy, boys. Let's not scare him off.

[anton pulisov]

Rooney is a very good player. But he is not a great player. All the very great players continue to improve with age. Rooney's only 31 and Man Utd are essentially paying Everton to take him off their hands. At the age of 34, Zidane was taking the piss out of the Brazil midfield in the 2006 World Cup quarterfinal. Why is Rooney essentially finished at Man Utd now that he doesn't have pace? Zlatan's pace is also gone, but he displaced Rooney from the team last season at the age of 35.

What is quite telling is that Diego Forlán was sold to make to room for Rooney in 2004. I know they are completely different players and difficult to compare, but the fact that Alex Ferguson didn't understand the purpose of a gifted player like Forlán is pretty damning. When I hear about people describing Rooney when he was young, it's all about power and pace and how he ran straight at defences.

He's the rich man's muscular Robbie Keane.

[Satchmo Distel]

Best since Bobby Charlton must be Keegan, Lineker or Shearer. Probably Lineker because he did the business in two World Cups. Rooney is 4th at best.

[Lang Spoon]

Fucking Beardsley man.

EDIT: oh, you mean best for England. That rules out my second choice of Barnes. And Scholes.

[Excitable_Boy]

Rooney is a very good player. But he is not a great player. All the very great players continue to improve with age. Rooney's only 31 and Man Utd are essentially paying Everton to take him off their hands. At the age of 34, Zidane was taking the piss out of the Brazil midfield in the 2006 World Cup quarterfinal. Why is Rooney essentially finished at Man Utd now that he doesn't have pace? Zlatan's pace is also gone, but he displaced Rooney from the team last season at the age of 35.

Thats pretty selective, at Rooney's age Maradona was leaving Napoli for Sevilla and would only add the Artemio Franchi trophy to his honours, Marco Van Basten was retiring, Ronaldo was joining Milan but suffered from injuries. Platini retired at 32, Beckenbauer left Bayern Munich for the NASL at 32.

Also Rooney played 33 league games in his first season at Everton (37 games in total) and he turned 17 that year. Zidane didnt play that sort of number until he was 2 years older. Maybe because I listen to too much NBA but I think games played is as telling as age and Rooney is around 750 including Internationals; which isnt the highest compared to Giggs and Lampard (both over a 1000) or Zlatan (who is over 800) but is comparable to most Ive mentioned.

But Rooney's problem is that (like Beckham before him) he was the great hope for the international side who did something stupid to get sent off before England lost.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Fucking Beardsley man.

EDIT: oh, you mean best for England. That rules out my second choice of Barnes. And Scholes.

I didn't say best player for england. You can't judge a player based on how they played for england. I said Best attacking english player since charlton.

Rooney is a very good player. But he is not a great player. All the very great players continue to improve with age. Rooney's only 31 and Man Utd are essentially paying Everton to take him off their hands. At the age of 34, Zidane was taking the piss out of the Brazil midfield in the 2006 World Cup quarterfinal. Why is Rooney essentially finished at Man Utd now that he doesn't have pace? Zlatan's pace is also gone, but he displaced Rooney from the team last season at the age of 35.

You seem to be basing an awful lot of your judgements on the behaviour of Jose Mourinho. I'm not sure that's wise. And Zidane was so fucking high during the 2006 world cup that he headbutted someone.

What is quite telling is that Diego Forlán was sold to make to room for Rooney in 2004. I know they are completely different players and difficult to compare, but the fact that Alex Ferguson didn't understand the purpose of a gifted player like Forlán is pretty damning. When I hear about people describing Rooney when he was young, it's all about power and pace and how he ran straight at defences.

For god's sake read that David Winner article. Look I fucking love diego Forlan, but Wayne Rooney was a vastly better player. Forlan needed to go to a club in between independiente and Man utd, that's all. And sure that's what people think of when they think of a young wayne rooney, but that's an entirely false memory, based on one run against two very slow opponents. Check out the video. And rooney's goals at euro 2004 were a far more accurate barometer of what Wayne rooney actually was like. two long range shots, a front post header and a one-two on the halfway line to completely confuse the defence, followed by a gentle cruise through an empty half, and a placed finish. That people only remember the penalty against france says a lot about what people tend to remember.

He's the rich man's muscular Robbie Keane.

This is hilarious. The Defining characteristic about robbie Keane is that he has never had a conscious thought on the pitch, wayne rooney talks about football being like snooker where you are constantly trying to look four shots down the line. You couldn't literally get two more different players. I mean he independently worked out an entire set of vizualization techniques, this makes him an awful lot more like John Giles than Robbie Keane.

He talked in another interview about faithfully recording any brief glimpse of Ajax amsterdam on satellite telly so he could figure out what jari litmanen did. He was fucking 10 years old at the time. And if you watch that half hour video of his goals this becomes very obvious. Rooney was an armour plated jari litmanen for the 21st century.

[Excitable_Boy]

The Defining characteristic about robbie Keane is that he has never had a conscious thought on the pitch

What was all the pointing about then?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Shifting blame trying to look important. Both reflex actions straight out of the lizard brain.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Are you telling me that the world's shittest goal celebration was just muscle memory then?

[Excitable_Boy]

Are you telling me that the world's shittest goal celebration was just muscle memory then?

Probably but why are we now taking about Alan Shearer?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Are you telling me that the world's shittest goal celebration was just muscle memory then?

if you try and do a cartwheel by any other means then you're headed for traction.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Cartwheel? Glorified forward roll, more like.

[Lang Spoon]

Was he not more a forward roll man toward the end?

EDIT: foiled again. Damn your eyes, Toby.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Aye, that's maybe true. No excuse for the gun fingers though.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Look, he's morrisey's cousin. He's obviously going to be a bit of a git.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Ah, I've nowt against Robbie. It's not like he's Joey Barton.

[anton pulisov]

I also watched a lot of Jari Litmanen when I was a teenager, but unfortunately it didn't turn me into a world class attacking midfielder.