Rooney was poor, not especially compared to other England players, but after being billled as our saviour who would improve us massively when he came back, criticism is inevitable. A victim of unrealistic expectations.
i already said before in this article if you read the comments properly, i admitted Rooney didn't play well and he played poorly but him getting all the blame is just stupid. where was the england midfield after first half? it looked like there was 8 defender's and two striker's. the mid gave Pirlo an awful lot of space. Roy got the tactics wrong. didn't really create any good chance after first half, but yet Rooney again gets all the blame. what the hell, its getting ridiculous.
You're right, everyone was poor (except Joe Hart and the defence imo), but Rooney is England's best player and you can expect him to get it with both barrels every time he has a bad game. Lampard used to get it every time because he could consistently do it for Chelsea but not for England. I'm not into blaming one particular player in instances like this, England actually did better than I thought they would, but Rooney should not have been dropped straight into the team when they were playing fine as they were.
To be fair young was just as bad. The united boys were suffering a hangover from their premiership meltdown
The defense were just as bad, England might as well of lined up with 8 defenders and they still got easily beaten with the simple ball in behind time after time, France wasted numerous chances while our midfield sat on the 6 yard line, Sweden lacked the final ball but got round the defense numerous times, Ukraine were unlucky not to take advantage of the chances they created and Italy should of been at least 3 up within 90 mins if not for terrible finishing, just because the other teams didn't take advantage of it doesn't mean the defense played well.
I agree, Rooney was poor but so were most of the players on the pitch. The blame has to be spread out and in particular some has to go to Roy for his tactics and his handling of Rooney. No player should know that even though they're banned they're going stright back into a starting place no matter who it is. Personally, I think Roy should have brought Rooney on as a sub against Ukraine and then depending on that performance and training he could have started of been used as a sub again against Italy. The flip side of that was that if Roy had done that and we'd have lost against Ukraine then everyone would have said it was because he didn't start Rooney. I think Roy's mistake was trying to pick the most experienced 11 he could against Italy rather than picking the players who were in form. Look at Oxlaid-Chamberlain, he played great in the opening game and he hardly played after that, but he's young and had no experience. Also, I'd have prefered to have seen Jones put in midfield over Henderson. I think Henderson is garbage, he played poor for Liverpool and hot picked, I don't see the sense in that. Also, Jones was picked initially and Henderson was picked after players pulled out with injury, yet Jones never played. I find that odd. But anyway, I am digressing, Rooney does deserve some criticism as he played poorly however he is not the reason we lost. We did lose on penalties after all and it was Young and Cole who missed thiers so technically they were to blame. But then you can look at other parts of the game, Johnson's shot from about 4 yards out should have been a nailed on goal but he fluffed it, do you blame him. Going forward he didn't do too bad actually, but defensively he was crap. Where was Richards? Again the finger has to be pointed at Roy. Why was Welbeck taken off when he was playing okay instead of Rooney who was playing poorly? Look at Roy. Why was Gerrard on for the full 120 mins when his legs had gone well before Parkers? Look at Roy. Why did we play so well in the first half and then proceeed to completely give up in the second? You have to look at Roy and the players for that one.
City boys Hart and Lescott did well; even the Scousers including Carroll were better than Roon and Young. Young is good at 'winning' pens. Shame he can't take them
Care to clutch at any more straws? Hitting the post is just as worthless as punting it into row Z, a miss is a miss.
Oh please stop winging! Why did Rooney get the blame? Easy - he got bigged-up by the FA and the the media and England supporters as the saviour and then he didn't deliver. It's as simple as that. Now there's lots of reasons why he didn't but they count for nothing. It's not totally right and it probably is not fair but that's the case. Both Lampard and Gerrard have faced the same thing so it's nothing new. A culprit must be found and this time Rooney is it. Just let it go. I can promise you one thing though. Under Hodgson's tenure what you saw is what you are going to get from now on. If I had my way, I'd put a complete embargo on any England player over 25 and develop a team from the younger talent that we have in the country. It would probably mean missing the World Cup but we just might develop a team and a squad that could play together. For me, club will always come before country. Hence I'm glad that all of our players appear to have returned without injury.
Don't start you bugger! We's the world champs at hitting woddwork!! "We did it 33 times We did it 33 times last season - we did it 33 times!!"
