Since Rooney arrived: I give you @dcunited with 💪 and without 🙈 @WayneRooney. pic.twitter.com/7KGF619bci— Andrew Wiebe (@andrew_wiebe) October 18, 2018 Goals for is better, but not even that much better given the number of home games. On the road, we were actually scoring pretty well. It's the Goals Against that makes the biggest difference. Part of that is the attack being better, so in that sense you're right. The bigger part is Canouse's health and Hamid's signing. Eye test says all the back line is actually playing better, especially Mora, but whether that's due to Hamid and Canouse isn't clear.
This is the Wayne Rooney show, everyone else just kind of matters. If Rooney left today we’d regress back to the bottom nearly immediately. Enjoy the ride, I am.
I get that the media and some less observant fans are going to want to paint this as Before Rooney and After Rooney but that's not really fair. Hamid and Canouse started playing right around the same time too. More importantly, the team started playing home games. The significance of that last point is a truism in world soccer and is even more pronounced in MLS than in other leagues. So you have a team that was simply trying to draw every game to a team that was trying to win every game; how could that NOT have a huge effect? The surprising thing then is not that DC United is racking up points (that was after all the plan all along, with or without Rooney) but rather the way that they are racking up points.
It wasn't that positive. I also think the negative part of it was wrong. Replace Rooney with a solid DP forward and they're still a pretty good team. As to enjoying the ride... I definitely am.
100% agree. I give all four of those factors (Rooney, Hamid, Canouse, Audi Field) about equal part in the team's run. If I'm doing it right though, Audi Field probably deserves even more weight. Frankly, I thought we'd get to around 43 points. To be at 47 with 2 winnable games left is pretty amazing. To do it through the heat of the summer and fixture congestion and international callups and injuries and Arriola's father passing etc... is amazing. Other than our game vs. Montreal, they've really been pushing us the last month or so. We've had to be near perfect to get to this position.
I’ve been waiting a long time but I was always positive on the Rooney acquisition. Rooney is such a superstar that he’s able to overcome all of this organizations shortcomings that we will now certainly keep in place because they want to claim credit for what Rooney has done all by himself. We have guys all season long dogging it that suddenly look serviceable. Look at Deleon who only looked good when DeRo was carrying him like a dying man through the Saharas. Even he doesn’t look like he was hitting blunts for a few hours pregame.
You're certainly right in the abstract. The pairing of Canouse and Moreno really stiffened the spine. Hamid also has been brilliant in goal, that really helps. However, I don't think Rooney is fungible with a DP forward. On a skillset basis, no question. However Rooney has added some intangibles that have impacted the way the other players play and respond to challenges. Acosta calls Rooney Señor Wayne and Acosta's play had improved dramatically since Rooney's arrival. Again, go back to the Orlando game, does a David Villa try to run down Will Johnson? We obviously can't answer that question definitively, but my guess is "no." The fact that the DP forward ran back like a bench scrub trying to impress the coach sends a signal to everyone else -- bust your ass like every play means the difference between winning or losing. That mindset hadn't been at DCU since DeRo was injured in 2012. It's back.
Hard to argue against it although now that Olsen has been annointed coach of the week a time or 2 who knows. Ok, pretty much we all do but why push it?
Why push what? The three factors leading to our success is Rooney, the home stand and the end of the year (good and eliminated teams stop trying as hard). Olsen can be annointed pope and I wouldn’t care because Rooney has us going. All hail Rooney
The guy wants to win. He’s DeRo but world class. Other people just didn’t want to win until he got here and changed the culture.
Jeebus Shammy, keep this up and we'll all need counseling to deal with the cognitive dissonance. Your recent posts are like the films in the Man in the High Castle -- a view of an alternative reality.
What he's really done and its been readily admitted by everyone is that he gives the rest of the players and extra second or two on the ball to pick their heads up and figure out whats best to do with the ball. I was as big a detractor of the acquisition as anyone and while I still think he was a marketing fluff acquisition, the outcomes have probably exceeded even the most optimistic of expectations.
As a DC United fan and a Man U. fan I knew what he could bring to this club. As you will note I also posted how he could be best used in the "How do we use Rooney thread." It was obvious to me how this would turn out. In the sense of Rooney but not in the overall team sense.
It's literally insane to think that professional athletes didn't want to win before Rooney showed up.