Inevitable "Rooney wasn't bad today". "There were worse players", that follows every Rooney performance. As that is now the barometer of a successful Wayne Rooney performance to "not be bad" and to "not be one of the worse players".
What people fail to realise is that they're speaking about the captain, the person playing in arguably the most important position on the pitch.
Look at De Bruyne's performance today, look at Rooneys, there's a hilarious gulf in quality between the two.
Mourinho has moved Rooney out wide two games in a row because he can obviously see Rooney has no impact as a number 10. His inclusion also effects the rest of the team and here's how
- Pogba's position. Why spend 89 million on a player and then play a poorer player in the position he should be playing in. It's so fecking dumb.
- Zlatan/Rooney combo . It's also not a good idea to have your two furthest forward players be very very slow.
My concern when he signed Zlatan was that his lack of mobility would be a problem especially if he was coupled with Rooney and that is exactly what has happened.
- A disciplined ball playing midfielder. The player we missed most today, notice how when Herrera came on and Rooney was removed from midfield it actually looked like we had a midfield. We've got Carrick, Schneiderlin, Herrera, Schweinsteiger and even Blind all capable of playing in this role. I don't think Fellaini should be dropped either because he's done well in his ball winning midfield role
He's not the best player in any position on the pitch that we have at the club yet he plays every minute of every game. Not only is it not a good idea to regularly not play your best players, it's an even worse idea to try and move your best players around the pitch in order to fit in the guy who's top level of performance is to "not be that bad" and to "not be the worse". You can't have such glaring weak links in your team, week in week out and win league titles, it just doesn't happen.
It doesn't matter that Rooney wasn't the worse player today, it's irrelevant to the bigger picture, for some reason a lot of people in this thread can't see it.
He also doesn't suit Mourinho's style, he's the complete opposite of quick, direct, turnover, instead he's slow, passive and immobile. Wonderful traits to have as a number 10 :rolleyes: You look at the Mourihnos past no 10's, Deco, Lampard, Sneijder, Ozil and now it's Rooney, it makes absolutely no sense at all.
