Yes i know he played the cross for Sturridges goal but, Sterling is better down the middle, Rooney cant play on the wide positons as he leaves us open defensiveley so do we cut our losses and use him as an impact player. Is he being picked on reputation alone.
Become? Quite a few of the England players get found out when they don't have a matey ref pandering to them.
Rooney has to be dropped. The only position he should play is the striker role - Sturridge is better than him in that role, therefore he should sit on the bench
agree , in the positions where Rooney is most effective , Stirling and Sturridge are proving better . Cant see how Hodgson can drop him though , as he can pluck brilliance from anywhere on the pitch
Rooney just isn't a tournament player. He's also a sulky moody twat who turns lazy. He should return to the UK, and he should get Hart to help carry his bags. Other than that, we have an exciting team for the future. Need a Gerrard replacement lined up, and Baines needs to work on the defence side of his game, other than that, we actually look pretty decent.
In hindsight, Milner would probably have done a better job on the left in terms of giving Baines more support, but Baines had a poor game too. Welbeck did OK as a ball-winning midfielder, but posed little attacking threat. I guess we can't complain too much as Roy did shock everyone by starting Sterling, and he also introduced Barkley with enough time to show what he could do.
If Rooney plays he needs a central role. I don't see how we can accommodate Wellbeck, Sturridge, Sterling and Rooney in the starting 11. We need a natural left sided player in the team (maybe Milner).
I agree Rooney is not a wide man in fact he was rubbish in the other world cups as well. On his day he is a good premier league striker but saying he is world class is going a bit to far so either play him down the middle or not at all and if he doesn't perform when in the striker role then drop him. Last night we didn't do much from corners and i would have liked to have seen us have some one like Carroll on the bench to bring on because even though we had some great chances we didn't have that killer instinct
Rooney has never performed to an acceptable standard in an England shirt. He's **** for the national team in my opinion. A square peg in a round hole.
Just cannot understand the logic of playing two strikers as the wide men in a 4-2-3-1, who are supposed to protect the full backs when the opposition have the ball but have no real defensive qualities. Wellbeck did a decent enough job but Rooney just wasn't at the races. Shame really because we have got some promising young players who could do really well for us alongside the one or two experienced old heads if we set up right. He's got to get it right on Thursday or it'll all be over before the fat lady's even got loosened up. Although from the highlights I'm guessing Uruguay weren't up to standard either? All we can hope for is that Roy gets lucky and stumbles across a winning formula like Bobby Robson did in '86!
Good post. The liability was the formation we didnt change. Baines had two all the time Woy didnt address it at half time never mind during the first half. Welbeck and Rooney swopped over at one point so it wasnt just Rooney who didnt cover Baines. Woy needed to get Henderson to shift over ten yards to give some cover to Baines. Cahill lost his man at the far post-terrible mistake. I thought the idea of Welbeck was to man mark PLO, sure he nicked a few balls but did we ever tackle PLO? Did we ever harry him knock a 35 year old out of his stride? Yes a 35 year old who managed not to go down with cramp.........
These players get that big that some are Moved around the pitch just to accommodate them! You wouldn't play a fullback in the middle? Or a centre back on the wing? But as soon as you get to the front players the rules don't apply. Rooneys a striker or a no10 but we have better inform players in both positions, so drop him woy.
Summed Rooney up pretty well there and I agree we actually look good, with a different manager using the players differently we would be better, he's picked the likes of Johnson and dropped Cole which were called as mistakes and are mistakes
Rooney was out-ran by his own team; never, ever should he have been trying to keep up out wide. Welbeck did exactly what he was intended to do and broke up play, gaining possession and initiating counter-attacks, all that was missing was taken chances. Balotelli drifted in, lost his marker and took it chance, proving it's an easy game really.
Square pegs, round holes. Rooney obviously doesn't want to play out wide, if he's not going to play down the middle, then he shouldn't be played at all(we used to have the same problem playing Gerrard on the left, to try and accommodate both him and Lampard in the team). We've got Lallana and Barkley who can play there, we're not short of options.
Rooney missing that sitter, and failing to track back, can't be put down to his position. He's renowned as a hard-working player yet when asked to do a job on the wing and gives Baines support he couldn't be arsed. In the first half he was too narrow and they were casually passing it to a man on the wing 10 yards beyond him over and over again, leaving a one-on-one against Baines. Welbeck did the exact same thing for Balotelli's goal. In fairness to Roy he addressed the problem by putting Welbeck there who was defending much better but then he did the same thing Rooney was doing, can't blame the manager for that, he was let down. We were miles better than them second half but lacked a final ball and decent finishing. You have to take your chances at this level, we're the first team who've really failed to do that so far in this tournament. We didn't even force many saves from the keeper, it was all missed final balls and crosses from us plus the Rooney chance smashed wide. If we're going to moan about Rooney though the worst thing for me is that he took a corner and planted it halfway across the running track behind the goal. We're constantly told he's our best player yet he does things like that. His good cross for the goal was the exception rather than the rule.
