Wayne Rooney A Player In Search Of A Role

With RvN finally gone and Man United on course for another great year of trophy winning potentially I thought I'd re-evaluate their biggest English star See Rooney Talent In Search of A Role below. For much of the season and preceding 2 he has been mostly nowhere near as good as made out. Indeed the first half of this season was characterised in him beating up on beaten sides and anonymity as the rest of the team performed around him.

I am going to make the leap of faith here that the following is now true: he has found his role(s) in the dynamic attacking play Queiroz and Ferguson have brought to the party: this is not just a brief flowering that all strikers for top teams go through: I think there are grounds to believe deployed mostly as a front player with the media foxus on Ronaldo he has developed as a team player: that his age means that some growing pains were inevitable: that he will never plumb the craven depths of the world cup or Benfica again even when out of form and fitness: that he will be deployed in his proper role by McClaren and others: oh and he is not Maradona but that is not a bad thing.... i.e. we have seen a permanent shift in his thinking, deployment and form will not conform to a normal cycle.

As a personality I am drawn to him maybe because he is a big name maybe because of what I saw at the Stadium of Light Sunderland 4 years ago. I certainly reacted when his compliant media who had built him up let him off several craven performances without commitment. Whereas Lampard's feeble world cup was crucified even though he at least tried. However Rooney was a young lad that media and manager built into the last hope at his expense and the teams.

Indeed if he is having a renaissance it is because the focus has been on Ronaldo and he has developed his line leading skills to open space and create pressure. He may be a better player as a shoulder of the defender cog/line leader than some 'mini me' Zidane star player.

Finally even if now the media don't see him as the star they prematurely proclaimed him Rooney is back in my books as England's no 1 forward. Sure he has games where he misses but now he is settling big games as against Milan and Everton. Not to mention he contributed against Roma in the key first leg, his late goal opened up the 2nd leg for the magnificent 7-1. The point being the old maxim is that strikers who are missing are at least trying and all strikers have barren periods.

I tend to be iconoclastic and need convincing these people the press laud are as big a factor on the winning and losing of games as all that. I believe it is primarily a team game and it is only the extreme loss of lots of players that hurts teams. Exceptions do exist but generally in flawed teams. So I have tended to shake my head as man of the match awards stacked up for Rooney in cup finals where he missed 10 shots at goal or in a world cup qualifying campaign where he got 0 goals and next to no assists whilst the midfield got 11 goals between them. Even Rooney's 14 goals and 9+ assists are in the context of a high scoring free wheeling team. His goals early season came in batches against teams United were beating up on. That is no longer the case.

Then again if Rooney gets 10+ assists 15 goals it should be said how many have managed that? Beckham, Lampard, Henry? Not sure many others have done that recently. Not even sure the great Ginger Prince has and Beckham maybe once. (League goals and assists as they are comparable).

So one could argue that Rooney has not been all that. However in recent weeks since Larsson left I feel he has shown his real value. He is best playing on the shoulders of the last defender. Behind RvN last and Larsson this year he went on goal droughts and intermitently contributed. As a player who likes to run onto the ball he surely prefers to be on the last defender or wide rather than sitting behind another striker. His shooting and passing do not seem accurate enough to justify him sitting deep either. However compared to Owen, Johnson and Defoe his rivals for the striking role he tends to lay the ball off to the right person when it is not on for him and is intelligent enough to float and compliment disparate talents as Saha and especially the go where he pleases Ronaldo.

Today against Everton he missed 3 one on ones with the keeper but it is his pace and power that got him there. Given a little more time coming in off the left he finished like a champion. However by breaking their line so often he effectively held Everton's line deeper and deeper forcing them back and creating the pressure they exploited. I have never seen anyone who breaks like he has done off the shoulder of the last defender in recent weeks.

So for me Rooney could turn into a good maybe not great striker. A better all round version of Owen and Shearer if maybe not quite the finisher they were. The excuses of the past that he cannot play up front on his own or wide have been blown away as he has done both brilliantly at times the last few weeks. Lets just hope this continues and is not a brief flowering.

Another key thing is this like Drogba last year he has a midfielder with more goals than him. However United have not missed having a single focus for the attack whereas this year whereas Chelsea have got 20 goals (assuming he gets one more) from a centre forward and gone backwards. The role of a forward is not just scoring. Indeed fewer and fewer top sides have one dimensional goal scorers as Owen having to pitch up at St James' Pk attests.

Rooney is a top class player and he can play wider off a front man in a 4321 or up front for me. Better still in a fluid rotating bewildering attack like United visited on Roma. McClaren please note when the one dimensional Owen or Defoe are available.

My first proper view of Wayne Rooney the footballer was when Sven Goren Eriksson played him as a 17 year old against Turkey. I came away from that match talking about an English Maradona. There was a point in the game that reminded me of the photo of Maradona poised with 6 Belguim defenders anxiously looking at him. At the Stadium of Light (the other one in Sunderland!) Rooney stopped with the ball and the whole Turkish team stopped with him. In a game where everyone else rushed around he seemed to transfix opponents and create space. I have only seen 2 footballers do that and he was the 2nd. To be honest the biggest clue how exciting he was was that Svennis picked him straight into the team - even allowing he was only replacing Heskey.

What I probably missed in that Turkey game as I contemplated Maradona without the cocaine was he created nothing and did nothing to threaten the Turkish goal. For 2 seasons for Everton he never really threatened to raise them up and his England displays were patchy. Yet in the middle of that we had the explosion of Euro 2004.

At 2004 he ran at France and won what should have been a match winning penalty. He just played against Croatia and the Swiss showing exemplary power and accuracy in his shooting. He then went off against Portugal with a broken foot and the rest of the England players looked so palsied and unable to spark.

Then somehow Man United paid 20 million rising to 27 for a player who was to be a free agent in a years time. I was one of the few, and not just to antagonise my United pals, who suggested that United were the wrong club for Rooney. I wondered if he would get the tactical direction and specific coaching of a Mourinho. Ferguson always strikes me as strong on motivation, discipline and fitness. Not on tactics, shaping players and talking to them about how to get the best out of them. Even David Beckham, who he had managed for years, he did not talk to as Beckham just continued to pump high balls into lone forward van Nistlerooy not exactly noted for his ability with said crosses - some fools still say that van Nistlerooy missed Beckham's crosses which makes no sense if you look at his scoring record and how he scores his goals - indeed Madrid do not play Beckham either at present so high is RvNs desire to receive high crosses from 40 yards away.

Back to Wayne Rooney, Mind it was not that any of the more cerebral managers seemed to want him - no one is quite sure Newcastle's bid was serious and no way his connections let him go there with only a year to freedom. Rooney at least showed he is not greedy for money as most people would ask in their personal moments if the fee is 20 million how much of that could I get next year?

If you listened to the commentators his first season at United was a resounding success as man of the match after man of the match award went to Rooney. His Champions League debut was a hat trick. He dominated the cup final taking 10 shots on the way to a man of the match award against a strangely sonambulaic Arsenal. Of course all 10 shots did not score and Arsenal won on penalties.

Indeed his first end of season return having played 2nd striker and lone front man in a successful 4321 with Ronaldo and a resurgent Giggs was 11 goals and 2 assists - similar to his Everton totals, less than Lampard who is a midfielder and less than his replacement Cahill. He failed to score in an England qualifier as well - although was man of the match most games according to the pundits. Still the talent was there and as a 2nd striker to RvN he would of course go onwards and upwards from here it was assumed. Everton suffered without him rising from the fringe of relegation to secure the chance to qualify for the Champions League by finishing 4th.

His 2nd season brought no more goals for England. It brought no more Champions League goals even if we excuse a dire world cup on the grounds of fitness. Indeed played in what pundits and journalists called the Rooney position (2nd striker) Rooney's errant shooting and passing meant whilst he played 2nd fiddle to RvN he led the league only in shots attempted and backs of stands hit. At season's end he had had approx 30 more shots for the same number of goals as Lampard.

Yet something did happen that showed that he was more than just someone who did things other players cannot. United started playing him with Saha, RvN was injured, and he no longer played as an orthodox 2nd striker. Suddenly played nearer goal Rooney's tricks and quick thinking opened up opportunities. No longer could he be crowded out and tackled before getting in position. His shots on target 'climbed' from 31% to 38% at one point (over the season so he started hitting the target far more from closer). He ended a 2 month goal drought and he and Saha would intelligently swap positions making a conventional 1st and 2nd striker analysis irrelevant. United went on a tear and beat Liverpool for 2nd.

Whilst he had promised not to be like previous uber talented kids like Joe Cole and naturally have a position - Cole is now a sort of hybrid winger. Rooney at least now seemed set as the sale of van Nistlerooy cemented his partnership with the talented but enigmatic Saha. In a 442 I would argue this was the most effective partnership in the premiership although late Mourinho did deploy The Drog and Crespo they did not gel as well and The Drog carried Chelsea over the line seemingly motivated by criticism of his Big Girl's Blouse theatrics.

So although the boy Rooney did not have the passing and shooting to be a 2nd striker and has apparently lost the ability to control a game by charisma alone he still is a top class premiership player. What he plainly will not be is a Maradona or a Pele. What pundits love about him and why they elevate him above better players, at present, like Lampard and Gerrard is that he does things few dare on a football field. I think this tends to make people feel he achieves more than he does. He is not in the same parish as say Thierry Henry as a goal scorer or creator. Indeed his pure numbers barely compare with a midfielder or 4th striker like Lampard. Rooney has yet to show his gifts can consistently unlock top flight defences in the premiership, Europe and internationally. Indeed until he started playing as the front striker with Saha I used to ask how many times he scored at 0-0? (not many it seemed judging on Man United mates of mine) He seemed to be best ala his great double versus Boro in the cup when the opposition were behind and over commited forward.

The problem Rooney has and arguably had at the World cup is about 6 ft tall with a quif and named after a dead President of the United States. It is also what has consistently happened when English teams and England have played 442 they get outnumbered in midfield. In the turkey shoot of beating the tripe that is two thirds of the premiership frankly the top 4 can play any formation they like. However that is no longer good enough. As said elsewhere even Mourinho is trying to square a circle this year with a 442 ala Sven with 4 central midfielders. Additionally a 2 man central midfield having to cover for a Ronaldo on one wing is a hard thing to do.

We have seen for England where Rooney was tried in a 451 and wide in a 4321 that this does not suit him. When he is unable to affect games as he is often exposed and caught in possession he loses his temper and is a threat to get sent off - bizarrely some blame the manager for this. Popular punditary is rather than try to accomodate Lampard and Gerrard England should slavishly follow Wayne Rooney. However as I have said his record just does not put him in that company. The irony being pundits would have him play off a single striker a position he has never sucessfully fulfilled. One in which his record is of few assists and goals - almost nil against top flight competition.

The point being as United went 451 last night with Saha up front and Rooney and Ronaldo wide that Rooney is not considered good enough, at present, by United to determine their formation. Not good enough to cover for Ronaldo being dropped in midfield. Or even to push Saha wide (what I would do as he scored coming off the right).

Rooney's supporters condemn him worse than I ever could when they say he cannot play wide or as a lone striker. To me as an England fan and judging United as a nuetral that says he should not play unless he can elevate his game then. It is a team game and until Rooney produces a record that "proves me wrong", as an England fan I hope he does, the you cannot build the team around him. If he can really only play 1 of the two striking positions in a 442 then drop him. England do not have a striker in the same league as a confident Louis Saha who can head, run and do brilliant things so whether they should be playing 442 is a matter to consider.

Even with Saha United want to play 4321 so Rooney needs to grow mentally, improve his passing, stop being so easily tackled when dribbling, improve his distance shooting accuracy or find clubs willing to dedicate themselves to him. Maybe he would have been better off at Newcastle and the unquestioning adoration of the St James' faithful.