Rooney did exactly what Carroll did - nothing special but scored. He is a much better player than Carroll and will only get better having got game time under his belt.
Was understandably very rusty. Was beneficial as he should now be 100% fit to face Italy, which we need.
Think Carroll would have put the header away that he got early on. Also we'd have had a target man to boot it long to when we were clueless in possession much of the first half. Still Rooney got a goal albeit a tap in but I'm not convinced. We have the defence and hart to look at for this win because it's our first clean sheet of the tournament
If he was in the position, of course he'd have scored. Who knows if he'd have been there, though? Probably. Rooney is simply head and shoulders above all our other strikers and has to start as he will only improve as he gets sharper. I'd rather have a player who's actually good and scored 30 goals last season up front than some overgrown uglyman who scored about 7.
TBF he has been like this for us this season. His performances masked by a goal He should have had a hat trick against ukraine but scored a fluke and not from the genuine chances. He often wasnt even in the box for the crosses That counter when gerrard (?) put him through and he basically ran out of breath has been a season long thing from my observations too. For UTD he scores simply because we create loads and even then not always, england wont create as much with the better teams and the chances will have to be taken when made. what pisses me off (and I dont rate carroll but like to think I am fair) is that when rooney was on we had crosses coming in from the wings which sailed over rooneys head as he is not the tallest. Bring on carroll and then all of a sudden the crosses are coming in to him from the defence with his back to goal. TBF to him he won most of these but there was no one to latch onto the ball. Why not get him in the box and cross from the wings? give the guy half a chance still think crouchy was the better option
He looked a little rusty but I think we'll see a better performance from him against Italy. Still managed to nod home though!
Well he got something like 86 minutes of game time under his belt so that should help with fitness and getting rid of skill rust, get him back in the groove, he also broke the 8 year drought of international goals so that should help him confidence wise. So he should be back to top form to play Italy which we need as England were poor in the first half and I think a better team would have destroyed us.
Rooney last night was absolutely terrible as has nearly every appearance he has made for England. He shoukd have been nowhere near the starting 11 v Ukraine and with him playing ridiculously deep (again!!) we struggled to create anything. If it was me picking the team Rooney would be out and Carroll in, Carroll and Welbeck seem to have a good understanding where as Rooney has simply never performed for England, yes hes a brilliant player but as a few people have said the best players dont necessarily make the same team. The choice to start Rooney was mind boggling to say the least when both attackers played well and both scored. IF IT AINT BROKEN DONT FIX IT COMES TO MIND!!!!
You think so?, how many good games has Rooney had for England? not many. Andy Carroll played well and should have kept his place but the manager had no backbone. Rooney bought all of this on himself by not being able to control himself( AGAIN!!) and getting banned. He should earn the right to play and should have been sub and come on second half.
you have to play your best players,and a fit Rooney is one of them.would Portugal leave out Ronaldo,or the Dutch RVP no!.ffs we have to play our best players,Rooney will partner Carroll up front against Italy i reckon.
With the players we have in the England squad how Rooney plays does not suit the team, we looked completely lost as all he does is drop deep and leave us with 1 striker. Its ok if we play 2 other strikers but Hodgson wont. Im not saying he isnt the best striker we have of course he is, he just doesnt do it for England and we cant keep building a team around a player who hardly ever delivers.
You mean in comparison to his United form? The fact is, even if he doesn't play as well for England as he does for United, he still plays better than any of the other strikers we have, has technical ability which we sorely lack and has the vision to utilise Walcott's pace somewhere near as effectively as it is for Arsenal. As several people have said, any manager will pick his strongest XI, and just because some people will say Messi doesn't perform for Argentina as he does for Barca it doesn't mean he should be dropped. The fact Rooney plays for United is a factor against him - he is an easily dislikeable player, but if he played for someone like Everton or Tottenham, I'm sure fewer people would be clamouring for the inclusion of a striker who scored a tenth of the number of goals Rooney did last term.
England got the most crosses in early in a game. It's was the same all tournament..early on they got a lot of crosses in then it all dried up. So it's obvious then Carroll needed to start and Rooney who's not 100% fitness wise comes on as a sub to spring life into England!! IMO our best bet was using Rooney as a sub. Otherwise it's best not playing him at all as he never seems to get subbed off..
If we had Lionel Messi and he played like Emile Heskey for us then I would leave him on the bench. So yea, leave Rooney on the bench.
He scored a goal that stopped Arsenal going a season unbeaten a year before they did and has lived off that, he runs around a lot (or used to) but is greedy and not a particularly good striker IMO, put hm in the Stoke side and he'd probably score less than 10 per season. How could he be unfit? He hasn't been injured. He looked fat, slow and lazy, I'd like to see him dropped from the england setup altogether persoanlly. Hodgson compared him to Pele' but I think he was referring to the 2012 Pele, not the one from the 60's.
Hodgson didn't compare him to Pele. He said top players, like Pele, produce(d) when it really matters for the team, and that's what Rooney needs to do to prove he's a top player.
But he isn't is he? For all the pundits declaring him "world class" I don't see many offers coming in from Real Madrid or Barca. As someone said very well, how many would he score if he played for Stoke? I'm missing the bit where everyone has decided that he is brilliant based on recent performances (particularly international). In the PL he has the backup of one of the best teams, and let's not forget quite a lot of "protection" from the refs! He had a lot of potential when young, but he has IMHO completely failed to develop into the player he might have been. But all these so-called experts seem to think he did. NB all this talk of Rooney is also deflecting criticism from other players who were also bad. Young gave one of the worst "international" performances I've ever seen, he shouldn't have been on the pitch to miss that pen! No doubt superficial changes will be made, like sacrificing players like Parker (who have brought needed stability since South Africa let's not forget) in favour of flair players, so we can do some kind of poor man's copy of teams with more "technical ability". What we should be doing is playing to our strengths. I've someone is in form like Holt then play them, if someone has consistently failed to produce like Rooney then bin them. No manager would have the guts to do that though. The last manager to make a brave decision was Hoddle when he dropped Gazza (and he was slaughtered for it). Unless you count Brolly-guy dropping Beckham, except in that case it probably wasn't justified!
A national newspaper had this headline last week; Rooney, the new PELE! This sums up our national psyche, we praise and idolise mediocrity, we dumb down everything to it's lowest level, and then stand back with our chest's puffed out because we've voted for some half wit singer on a reality T. V. show, and think we've done well. Same applies to our footballers, who at this current time is really "world class", my opinion is NONE, last nights game was embarrassing, it was like watching 5 year olds, just kick the ball anywhere, then all run back into your own penalty area to wait for it to come back again. At times we had 9 men in defence, the Italians attacked us with 4 or 5, and we still couldn't mark any one of them. 10 - 0 would have been fair, they would have scored those goals in we hadn't parked the bus. Gerrard is/was captain of the team, he should have wised up to what was happening and pushed the midfield further up the field, instead we just went backwards. To see one of our own players with the ball at his feet in yards of space, look up hesitate, then turn round and pass it back to the goal keeper was demoralising, and Joe Hart then kicked the ball out of touch, giving away possession time and time again. We really have to ditch this braveheart, run 20 miles per game attitude, it doesn't work and it makes us look like amateurs. Where is our Pirlo? Pele's name should never be contaminated with the likes of Rooney. I've seen comments on this forum saying we are one of the top 5/6/7 teams in Europe, sorry everyone, you are deluding yourselves, WE AREN'T!!!! ILD OTBC
So Holland who didn't pick up a single point in the group stages are better? France who we beat in the group and then lay down against Spain? People love to point out England's failings while pretending every other major team is some perfect unit of flowing attacking brilliance.
