₦airaland Forum

chamotex: Their transition from defence to attack is probably the best I've seen in a long while.
They are more dangerous when they are on the back foot.
Our midfield is very poor compared to these European teams.

they don't even slow down....
it's waves after waves of relentless attacks for 90 mins. the fitness level is 110%.

elampiro: The way Ozil struggled tonight. If it were Rooney that could only manage a few short passes, Coogar and co will find bullets. No risk taking, no power run or drives. Just play safe.

Football is not always smooth.

ozil struggled?
what seems like ozil struggling is better than whatever rooney has managed all season.

www.nairaland.com/attachments/1373582_image_jpg0d5b1c4c7f720f698946c7f6ab08f687

the day rooney manages 86% pass completion for us, i would buy a ram for every man utd fan in this section.

chamotex:

chamotex, did you see dortmund tonight? when it comes to purposeful possession football with the ball played on the ground, they are the best team in the world!

no wonder kagawa can't fit into our team. we cannot do it like dortmund. only anderson, cleverley & kagawa would play in their team. others would struggle to play this kinda 1-2 football under pressure.

VillageBoi: Ooh what a good girl you are... I know so many people watch it illegally - FACT! Sorry for any 'spoilers' you may come across.

girl??
are you new here? girl??

VillageBoi: Guy, how far? Na wa o... It wasn't hard to use tact to comment. It was pretty obvious from Coogar's post that she wasn't up to date all you could have said was "Brody is in it, you'll see him when you catch up." But no, you have to shout a semi-yab-spoiler. Soooooo behind... as if 1 or 2 episodes qualifies as soooo behind lol.
Oh by the way Brody is NOT 'now Venezuela'... Venezuela, the last I heard, is still a country! And bar any South American gender-bending operation I think Brody is still... eerrrmmm male
Just messing with ya bro. I beg no post slight spoilers.

don't mind that i too know dude...
finally saw the 3rd episode last night, i saw brody at the back of a van with wounds on his belly. itunes don't upload the episodes fast enough. i dished them a scathing attack last night for taking too long to put out the new episodes.

fergie wasn't going to speak the truth as at then cos the matter was still very fresh as at the time he made that interview...

this was his answer today....

The 71-year-old told Sky Sports: "This is the nub of it: in the regulations, in your contract, if you write a letter and ask away or say you have asked away, you lose all your signing-on fees.

"He has never admitted that and never put in a written transfer request, which is what he has been sore at."

Asked if he was clear that Rooney had made a verbal request to leave the club, Ferguson said: "Yes, that's right."

"My memory is he asked away because, he said, he was not going to play in his proper position. I can understand that.

"That's not a problem with me. I can only go on evidence on the football field. He wasn't playing well enough."

elampiro: But remember even SAF told Rooney he won't be released.

I guess Mata and Oscar were less creative than Rooney last season.

SAF couldn't be aršed about rooney - he said rooney wanted out & he wasn't going to stop him.

adebayo201: how tomorrow go be Na

home win against sociedad but it's moyes - he might start giggs, phil neville & nicky butt in the starting xi.

dayokanu: Rooney is not a player for the hole but due to his stature he is being forced to play there

The player in the hole needs to have excellent ball holding ability and passing too.

Playing a Rooney as the man in the hole turns the system to 4-4-2

isn't that the reason fergie wanted sneijder after the CL final in 2010/11 & then bought kagawa in 11/12? rooney is not good enough as a centre forward & he's worthless as a trequartista

Nowadays a 4-2-3-1 beats a 4-4-2 if the players have similar skillset because it overloads and outnumber the midfield and starve the 2 strikers in the 4-4-2

this is why rooney should leave - i am sure that was fergie's concept & the reason he must have bought kagawa. rooney lacks the tact, vision & the incisive passing ability of players like mata, oscar, ozil, coutinho or eriksen.

montelik: moyes say we are careless in possession and must improve. yet don't be surprised if Rooney continues starting despite with his 73% pass completion average.

if we want to be better in possession, Tom c starts and Rooney either drops behind RVP closer to the midfielders, takes RVP's spot or to the bench and someone else starts behind RVP.

just bench rooney
welbeck is better in the hole. welbeck is better defensively & he recovers possession a lot. he does not offer a great deal of goal threat but so does rooney. deduct setpiece goals from rooney & he's scored 0 league goals this season.

sir alex....

•ronaldo was the best player i managed
•roy keane leaving was the best thing as players were getting intimidated by him
•beckham was the only player i had that chose to be famous
•my row with beckham was because he didn't track back against arsenal & refused to accept his mistake

GustavoFring: Surely you must know that formations are flexible in game?

not with wayne rooney who has said now is the time to become selfish. individual glory is now more important to him than helping the team.

rooney plays too deep & too close to RVP. he does not operate in the hole these days. you either see him near carrick putting the ball in the flanks(predictable diagonal passes) or he stays too close to RVP & leave a void between the midfield & the attack.

StarBoard: Sales Pitch.
Nothing new that we don;'t know.
Just to ensure the book sells.

he's quite more explosive than that - fergie said "rooney is not a quick learner & he always struggles to stay fit."

ouch!

GustavoFring: What is man utd's starting formation?

4-4-2.
rooney has refused to play in the hole. he now joins up with RVP in the attack & there's a disconnect between the midfield & the attack.

rooney has been caught offside 9 times already this season. the whole of last season, he was caught offside twice & another 2 times in 11/12 season.

you are behind the curve, jackbauer.....

comedians have taken over the thread - leave the golden boot winner in the last 2 seasons on the bench?

you guys need some protein-shake to boost your brain power to the optimal level. RVP is very vital to the way we play. rooney must be the one to stay on the bench.

Excellent2010: Good afternoon my fellow Nairalanders. Please is it right for one's mother-in-law to demand money from you and also tell you the amount of money you must send to her. Even why trying to explain to her you are rich, she still insist on you sending the money via the tone of her response when trying to explain your situation to her? Please is this right?

your MIL needs deliverance...
she should ask her own children to send her money.

afrodoc: Hmmmm i don't think there is any cause for vitriolic arguments in this particular matter.
Dademola,Coogar and Starboard all agree that Rooney has been poor this season and he should be shifted from the no10 position for someone else to play the role.
The only difference i can make out is that Dademola believes Rooney should not be blamed for ALL United's problems as there are other issues with the team. This i believe is generally accepted as people here have at different times criticized Rio,Fellaini,Welbeck,our wing play and of course David Moyes.
Unless Rooney is now an Agent Smith who inhabits the bodies of the aforementioned people i don't see why anybody would blame Rooney for the failings of other adult men!

there have always been other issues with man utd even under fergie but we often outscored our opponents to stay on top of the league whilst quietly getting players back to form & improving the general quality of our football.

this season, the goals have dried up & we are finding it difficult to even win at old trafford. that's the biggest problem for me. it's not like we had a smooth sailing to the title last season. we conceded the first goal in many games but we had enough character to equalise & even win those games.

goals win games - not sentiments. the reason we are not putting teams to the sword is wayne rooney. he said he wants to be selfish & that limits the flexibility of the team. moyes cannot do a lot if rooney insists on playing upfront. moyes can't bench rooney & this has reduced quality game changers like kagawa & hernandez to the bench.

^^^
SAF knew what he saw & in the long run, selling rooney would have been more beneficial than keeping a player who has decided to be selfish. football is no longer a team game, it's all about rooney.

superstar1: Rooney playing has 10 is not doing this team any good.

Look at our dismal chances created and the problem is not far fetched. Our supposed 10 is not doing his job. Simple.

Yea we can blame the entire team for our performance but even in the midst of this madness, if we can still be creating chances and scoring, we will hang in there till Moyes get his bearings.

If Southampton is creating more chances than us, our 10 needs to be reviewed.

I will rather suggest, he is shifted to the left and let us try kagawa in that position and see how it goes. For now our 10 clearly is one of our weakest points.

thank you very much - you get it

montelik: freshen up the side for sociedad.

ddg, rafa, Vida, Rio, Fabio
tony v, Carrick, fellaini, welbeck
kagawa, chicha

zaha will get his 90 mins in the carling cup next week

leave rooney out of a european game? you want moyes to get bruised by the man-child?

elampiro: How many chances did he miss that did not lead to goal eventually? This season alone RVP missed from one yard with the goal keeper beaten. RVP missed from 5 yards in our penultimate league match and we still won 2-1. In the last 10 minutes of that match, Rooney and Valencia kept the ball with short passes. We won many matches that way in 2007/8 season with 1-0 nil. Situations can never be the same. Successive victories boost confidence which eventually lead to healthy results.

can you not see that if rooney is bad, it would definitely affect the service given to RVP? would RVP take the ball from de gea & dribble 11 opponents to score? rooney is poor - end of story. stop looking for cheap excuses where there's none. strikers like RVP had to be fed with quality services to score. our wing-play has been below par which means the onus is on rooney to create something from the middle.

We can even conclude that if Rooney didn't play, we should have been 2 goals down in the first place. Why do we usually concede when he leaves the pitch?

if rooney wasn't on the pitch, the players who would have played in his place would have offered more going forward. winning games is all about outscoring your opponents & not necessarily keeping clean sheets.

RVP is as solid as ever - he has 7 goals or so in all competitons. it's the service behind him that is lacking quality. rooney cannot create anything unless it's from a setplay. even his setplays are dogshite. corners are wack & his freekicks are horrible for a player earning £1m a month.

elampiro: I tried to reason with them but the problem with Starboard and Coogar is that the write like they have a personal real life issues with Rooney outside football. How can a whole team dismal performance been pinned on one man. It makes nonsense of their argument. Can a number 10 be the reason we conceded at Anfied, or conceded in Ukraine. Rooney had left the field before we conceded on Saturday and even against Leverkusen. The back is not working, wings are not working, midfield is weak and the top 9 is not as prolific as last season. United has conceded more goals than any of the top half teams. Some guys put it on Rooney.

They can still claim to be analysts?

except that if rooney had scored from the chances he had on saturday, the goal conceded would have been an academic point. chelsea & arsenal conceded on saturday & still won by a huge margin.

you sometimes reason like a child.

StarBoard: Quite appalling that some people are so one-directional in their approach.
Because he hits the 200 yard diagonal pass to the right wing and scores dead rubber goals, some people bury their heads in his huge arse hole.

haha - rooney's selfishness is impeding the team. how moyes & pro-rooney group fail to see this is baffling.

The annoying line now is that "van Persie is struggling". Meanwhile Rooney who enjoys far more touches on the ball hasn't shown us any kind of productivity.

when simpletons are bereft of ideas, any excuse would do for them. van persie has scored 4 league goals in 6 starts including 3 from open play in spite of the insipid service he gets from the team.

And people tell us that Rooney is not inimical to our play when he even admitted he is going to be selfish.

rooney would say that cos he knows he's achieved more than moyes. he's richer than moyes. that's the disadvantage of hiring a bricklayer to manage prima donna multimillionaires. would rooney say such to pep, mourinho or even roy keane?

But we have a Kagawa idling by and picking splinters out of his arse from the bench. The Rooney di-ck riders association won't agree that he is limited in his ability.

this bit is the most painful for me.
we actually have a world class player who was born to play in the hole & make off the ball movements. yet, the marriage union of moyes/rooney has limited kagawa to only 45 mins action out of 720 league minutes available.

But no, van Persie struggling is the reason for our troubles, not Rooney who cannot score from 5 yards or beat a keeper in a 1-beat-1 situation.
SMH

pay no mind to the charlatans....
rooney is not excellent at anything - he's a street footballer. jack of all trade, master of none. play him upfront & he needs 20 big chances to score a hatrick. play him in the hole & he's busy doing tippy-tappy with de gea & the centre-halves.

then i found this stat....

Rooney was offside on two occasions in 11/12. In 12/13, he was offside on two occasions. This season, Rooney has been offside nine times.

StarBoard: The pro-Rooney camp cannot tell us what exactly it is that makes him our " best" player.
Instead they say van Persie is also " struggling".
A supposed #10 can only make 1 out of 6 telling passes in a game.
Aside from creating imbalance in the squad, he adds nothing positive except dead-rubber goals.

you know deductive & cognitive reasoning are challenges to some football fans. some people's eyes should be taken from them & given to the people who would make better use of it. how can anyone not see rooney is the problem?

this was rooney's comment...

"Everyone at the club knew where I wanted to play and I think that's why I was disappointed,

I got told to play in midfield and I didn't want to. I just think there had to come a point when, for my own career, I had to be a bit selfish really.

"I actually felt when I played in midfield I did okay, but I didn't want to play there. I've had no problem in the past playing out of position, but I felt I deserved the right to play in my position and that wasn't happening.

"I think, naturally, I was a bit disappointed and maybe that affected some of the games I played. I know myself that last year wasn't my best season but there were times when I was playing in different positions.

"Rooney, who will turn 28 this month, added: ‘David Moyes has come in and he’s playing me up front and I’m enjoying it. If it was the last 10-15 minutes of a game and we were holding on a bit and I got asked to drop in to help see the game out, I’m not saying I’d throw my arms up and not do it.

basically, it's now pretty much impossible to change our formation with rooney on the pitch given that he wants to play as a striker and if moyes wanted to play 3 in the middle for example, he would have to shift rooney to the wing or play him in midfield which would upset rooney(england's golden prince)

so that leaves moyes' hands tied as far as tactical change is concerned. it's not surprising that the two times moyes had shifted us to different formations (4-3-3 and 4-1-4-1) were when rooney wasn't on the pitch. rooney has declared he had to be more selfish, and he is, and it's affecting the team as a whole. that's even discounting kagawa that actually wants to play in the hole but being marginalised by the moyes/rooney dictatorship.

rooney in his stupidity either stays too close to RVP & cut out the midfield completely from linking up the attack or he stays too deep(sometimes deeper than carrick) to link up with his strike partner. moyes seems powerless to do anything about this and we have a striker who doesn't want to play in the hole & help the midfield unless he's begged to play there in the last 15-20 mins of a match!

very good show apart from the rabid CIA-officer. carrie is mentally-retardëd! brody played his role well - i liked how he dealt with his friend when he realised he's been boning his wife.

season 3 is yet to kick off - i have not even seen brody yet. his daughter has lost it & carrie has carried on where she left off in the last 2 seasons.

i can't stand olivia pope - she puts the s in sluttiness. why would any woman pride herself in sleeping with someone else's husband? it's mind-boggling.

this elampiro is a double-headed goat...
what nonsense is this tool writing? comparing messi & ronaldo to chicharito is now your weak defense to absolve rooney? how low can you sink on this thread? have you no iota of decorum?

[quote author=tpia@]i did not read the whole story, but if you're a christian and your muslim boyfriend has never followed you to church (nor can you provide evidence he was ever in one), yet you still went ahead and married him, then i dont know what to say, sorry.

just get closer to God.[/quote]why would a muslim boyfriend follow his chic to the church? do christian chics follow their boyfriends to the mosque?

montelik: But that is my point Rooney really hasn't been playing in the hole this season. Yes he drop deeps to hit some hollywood passes no and then and also when he gets restless and wants to touch the ball. But so far we have mostly been playing a 4-4-2 with him upfront with RVP. Moyes is trying to placate his demands to play upfront. But with our midfield issues (both wing and center) we need a 2nd striker more willing to drop off more often, not just to help out defensively but to give our midfield who sit so deep options.

The problems is Moyes being too rigid.

and moyes cannot show rooney who's the boss & leave him out of the team? rooney lost the ball 13 times yesterday - how the heck are we going to create anything from such player in the final third.

people say RVP has been poor, where's the service to him? even with the poor service, RVP has scored 4 league goals in 6 starts. rooney on the other hand has been scoring strictly from setplays.

nitrogen:
All because of Cooger, you joined nairaland?, can I tell you that we're used to Cooger and his correct analysis o. Forget!

my £5 says it's elampiro/nyabinghi disgracing themselves trying to score cheap brownie points. cowards are scared to post with their real monikers. they are all getting destroyed by me & that's a promise!

montelik: I won't blame Rooney for yesterday. He was poor yesterday along with others (Fellaini, Rafael, Welbeck in particular). But the problems is Moyes is trying too hard to satisfy Rooney. It was clear the 4-4-2 was too rigid. Rooney and RVP were so far upfront and Carrick and Fellaini were sitting so deep. Meanwhile Southampton were playing with a high line and pressing us right from DDG, nullifying Carrick and making Fellaini look like a pub player. Rooney should have dropped deeper to exploit the room left by Wanyama and even Schneiderlin pressing so high up the field. But Moyes is trying to satisfy Rooney's desire to play upfront and yet he can't drop RVP from attack either. We saw the same against Sunderland. Rooney and RVP so high up the pitch and no consistent link btwn attack and midfield. When Adnan drifted from the left into the space behind the front men he scores. We don't have the personnel for a rigid 4-4-2 to satisfy both Rooney and RVP as strikers throughout 90 mins.

you won't blame rooney but....

• rooney was poor yesterday
• rooney should have dropped deeper
• rooney lacks positional discipline
• rooney either plays too far/too close to RVP

let's just admit rooney is shyte & he should never be trusted to play in the hole. we lose creativity with rooney on the pitch. his setplays are hit & miss. only 1 out of his 6 crosses found a united player last night.

chamotex: So if Rooney is the main problem, so why is DM playing him?
In other words DM is the ultimate problem for playing a player who is the 'main' problem isn't it?

DM has no spinal cord....he doesn't want to upset rooney by shifting him wide. rooney actually stated he wants to play centrally so there's little DM can do tactically if things aren't going our way. rooney is a selfish brat & i think his focus is now for england & the world cup after which he would leave united for PSG. by then, kagawa, zaha & chicharito would have handed in their transfer requests and we would be screwed!

Zaha has not had a minute of football yet and our wingers have been stinking up the whole joint. DM can't motivate these players and is too scared to make the big calls.

nani was our best player yesterday while he was on. he troubled the saints more than any outfield player but your point still stands that we haven't really created from the flanks this season.

and this is why playing through the middle should be our only option left till the wingers get back into form. rooney is frustrating that effort as he's shyte at what he does. unless rooney gets suspended or injured, we would never see kagawa in the hole.

My position since day 1 is to try different thngs and let's see if it would work.
If we keep on doing this same things, we are going down south.

rooney won't let that happen - DM is scared to even shift rooney elsewhere thus limiting his tactical options. rooney is average leading the line & he's below average in the hole.

DM has to be pro-active rather than re-active. He looks clueless on the touchline to be and I'm still yet to see any sort of tactical nous from him

he's the most brainless manager in the league. when he gets the team selection right, he screws it up with daft subs. more often than not, he gets it wrong from the starting line-up.

can anyone explain the giggs substitution last night? smalling coming on? the same moyes said he told the players one goal wasn't enough at half time & his best decision regarding that was to remove nani & rooney to replace them with giggs & smalling?

wow - moyes must be a genius!

chamotex: The main concern here is that things might get even worse before it gets better.
Over 10 games in charge now and it seems that DM doesn't exactly know the roots of our problem so how can it be fixed any time soon.
We can not keep doing the same things and expect different results.

1) Our wingers have been in their worst form since Giggs started shagging his brother's wife

2) These days we just might be one of the worst teams without the ball, we just allow teams to play, no structure, no pattern of play and we never press the ball high up the pitch.

3) The transition from defence to attack is as slow as molasses in January

4) Counter-attacking is zilch

5) I'm not sure whether DM under-estimated how crap our CM is or he just felt he could do something miraculous with it.

6) DM's mindset of trying not to lose or to contain is affecting our chances of winning.

i disagree with all the points you highlighted here. rooney is our main problem. i hope he tears his hamstring on both legs & you would see the difference his absence would have on the team. apart from his hit & miss setplays & running around like a chicken, what exactly is rooney's function to this team?

on 3 occassions, rooney lost the ball at the edge of our box causing the saints to put pressure on our young defence. it then begs the question - what was rooney doing in that part of the pitch when he should be providing service for his arrow head. rooney would be 28 next week & yet he still does not understand his position.

the goal we scored was another horrible miss by rooney. one v one with the goalie & he shot tamely at the goalie. thank feck van persie was lurking around to show him how it's supposed to be done.

i ask, what does rooney add to this team? nothing!!! he runs away from his responsibility to sit deep near carrick so he can be credited for aimless hollywood passes. the earlier he gets shifted to the wide area, the better.