Agree mata is not the best as right winger, but I look at the team I don't see anyone else who can do better there. Young is useless on the right, if we have to play him it would be on the left, then where would we play Memphis who is also bad on the right wing. Mata on the other hand can play a false right winger and cut in to the middle ( he is intelligent) where he is more comfortable leaving darmian to do the crosses.
I do think Rooney will improve BTW. I think come the end of the season he will have a combined total of 20+ goals and assists across all comps which would be very respectable once again.
I would play Herrera on the right. He's less likely to cut in which will lead to less congestion (have you seen the state of it when Depay, Rooney and Mata are all in the middle ). Herrera's never going to give you the same qualities as a pure rw but I think he would help maintain width better than Mata does and would be an improvement over Young there. Note, this would be a short term solution. I would hope we address RW soon enough.
I don't think Lostboi was saying Rooney would have become both the answer to our Number 9 problem and remained injury free. He is saying quite the opposite. He believes (as I remember him saying at the time) that Rooney couldn't be relied upon solely and that we needed another striker. All he's saying now is what LVG may very well have used (Rooney scoring, not getting injured) to justify not buying one. He's also not saying to replace Rooney either. As said above, LVG may well have used Rooney as the excuse to not needing one in addition to what we already have. Re: Rooney's form, you have more faith than I do I'm afraid. If we win these 3 games with Rooney playing, no chance he'll be dropped. Don't forget he was playing Rooney in CM while Herrera sat on the bench while we were grinding out results last season.
The all-important team news is out from the United camp: De Gea; Valencia, Smalling, Blind, Young; Schweinsteiger, Herrera; Mata, Fellaini, Pereira; Rooney. Subs: Romero, Darmian, Jones, Carrick, Schneiderlin, Memphis, Martial
Hope so too, some of those overrated brazilians in the league right now. He'll show them how it's done. Actually would have been good seeing him play behind Martial tbh.
Fellaini has played well so far. The problem for him is his rep. So even when he makes a decent challenge, thick refs blow for a foul
I don't think we should underestimate Ipswich tbh. And Pereira playing with first team regulars is a pretty good move imo.
