Zani Presents: Wayne Rooney is Overrated and other Thoughts

Nice to see you go back and edit that post with the last sentence. That's true irony for you to call out something as being off-topic. Brilliant.

As for winning, this isn't about winning. This is about discussing the beautiful game. Something you're not very good at.

 

i may be wrong, here, but i think it's basic arithmetic...

tant pis!

 

Gol darn it, you're right!

 

How about we don't bother. You make claims that are off base and when presented with facts shirk, duck, and backpeddle worse than politician busted walking out of a brothel at 4am.

You asked to be proven wrong. I showed you where you were wrong. You said show that you did it twice and I did. You asked for it to be brought up.

Really????

 

Prove you wrong? That is an opinion, not a fact. We can discuss that issue but that's different than being right / wrong and all that.

 

As frustrating as it is to deal with you Zani, you're definitely good for a laugh or three. I just don't think you realize it.

 

Zani -

Please tell us in concise terms what point you are trying to make in post #259.

Btw, congratulations for mastering the technical aspects of the cut and paste.

 

Eng-er-lund need to play either 4-4-2 with Rooney and Owen up front or if Sven 'The Myth' Erikksson decides to stick with this terrible 4-1-2-1-2 formation he needs to drop Defoe and play Smith up front with Owen to add some balance and aerial power.

 

Personally i think Owen should be dropped, and replaced by Darius Vassell see how that works out.
ZANI every time Smith has come on he's looked aggressive and that's it apart from that he done nothing apart from run around after the ball like you would if i put a tenner infront of you attached to a bit of string and kept pulling it as you got close.

Also in what context do you mean Rooney is over-rated, by whom and what does it matter?

 

Not at all i don't know how the hell Owen keeps his place Sven has to try new things, when Vassell comes on things happen the least he can do is give him a shot, but he seems to have fallend from favour completely since his penalty miss, which can't be great for his confidence, although we're so worried about Owen's confidence, if you're going to treat one player like that why should Owen be given another chance?

Smith's last goal against Boro was luck, it wasn't a silly run at all.

 

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OK. I suggest you save up all your dole money ( convert to Euros, better bet ) and join Glazer in his move on United. Then you can start the Yorkshireman.

 

Huh? What exactly is contradictory?

I only agreed that Rooney was overrated by The Sun. You implied that I had agreed that Rooney was overrated in general

Notice though he didn't say 'it will depend on their club form'. Club form certainly gets players noticed by Sven, and gives them a chance in friendlies/substitutions etc, but their international form is the only thing that's going to give them a starting spot in the long run. And it's good international form that Smith is currently lacking.

What else is Sven going to do between international breaks but watch football games? He doesn't have much else to do then. It doesn't mean that the international careers of any players he's watching are hanging in the balance. It took a whole year for the non-playing Nicky Butt to lose his spot in the England first eleven. It seems clear that, provided you perform for England, you can survive long periods of poor club form or even not getting a game for your club. Poor international form is much more likely to be the cause of players being kicked out of the team.

I'm not saying I agree with this, but that's how Sven does it. He almost never picks players with great club form if they are not currently among his regulars.

But not unprecedented. Sven kept picking Keiron Dyer instead of Jermaine Jenas, despite Jenas playing much better for Newcastle at the time.

Speaking generally, there could be reasons why a manager would keep picking a player in that situation. Perhaps tactically he needs a certain type of player rather than necessarily the best one. Perhaps the manager's system doesn't fit the in-form player. Maybe he's worried about changing a team that seems to be working perfectly anyway.

I agree that if Smith were to consistently relegate Rooney to the bench Rooney's England place should be in serious doubt. But in the long run, I very much doubt this will happen, Rooney is quality and will only get better. It is rumoured however that Fergie will bench Rooney tomorrow, but only as part of his policy of easing young players into the first team. Prevent 'Burn-out' as they say (what is burn-out anyway? Does it have anything to do with spontaneous combustion? Is it a public health issue?). If this occurs, I am sure you will proclaim it 'proof' that Fergie rates Smith higher, when in reality Rooney is probably just being rested. If he spends three games in a row on the bench, then you have a case.

As for Owen, there's only a limited amount of shame to be had from being #3 behind Ronaldo and Raul. Knowing Sven, another two good England performances will secure his place for quite a while, even if he doesn't play much for Real. I'm not sure whether Sven will be happy picking a Real Madrid squad player forever though; will Owen have to secure a regular spot in Real's first eleven to stay in England's? I suppose it depends on the quality of players vying for his place.

I'd have said that Smith is the sort of player who defences would always notice, as he's constantly hustling them and trying to force errors.

Assuming he watched the team at Euro2004, I hope not!

Sven's midfield may have talented individuals, and they may be getting plenty of goals, but if you ask me they're failing collectively in the main purpose of a midfield, controlling a game. We can't even control the midfield against extremely poor teams, and against quality teams our midfield gets pushed back deep into our half. Switching to three in midfield will just make things worse if you ask me.

Up front we have Rooney and Owen, two guys who are both very close to getting a goal every two games, which is excellent in international football. We don't need the midfield to 'bail us out' as Zani said, we just need them to control games like a (allegedly) world class midfield should.

Respect from Zani... will wonders never cease?

 

i don't knwo why I'm bothering, but......

No it doesn't.

No it doesn't.

Yes. Not exactly unusual, it is?

 

Zani-I would like to see his face starting Owen and Rooney if they both can't keep a regular place in their respective teams.

Rooney has been playable for 3 games and has started 2 and was going to be rested for this one but came on anyway. I wouldn't go as far to say he hasn't found his spot with United.

 

It's the difference between a rational opinion and that presented by The Sun, i.e. a huge difference.

Not unless they get desperate. And they get desperate if there isn't a major national scandal every few days...

That's one explanation. It's just as plausible that he simply wanted to play all three. Or that he thought having Rooney in midfield was the best way to deal with the absence of Gerrard. Or that he wanted to put maximum pressure on a very weak Welsh defence. I don't think the average fan has solved the eternal mystery of Sven's motivations, so I see no reason to accept that the most widely believed explanation is necessarily the correct one.

Sven shows so little emotion that his character in a hollywood biopic would have to be played by Keanu Reeves. Do you really think he's 'scared' of dropping certain players?

To be fair, he didn't have anyone decent to replace him with at the time. All his other midfielders were either poor in comparison or just not good at playing on the wings. You could call not bringing Shaun Wright-Phillips to Euro2004 a mistake, but it was only that season he had started to look good enough, and he hadn't been capped yet.

I'm not sure the FA can afford to sack Sven. They'd have to give him a huge payoff. Palios tried to get rid of him for free by charging him with lying about that affair with an FA secretary, and look what happened to him. The players are always firmly behind him (for some reason) so I don't think his position is that insecure.

When Sven kept picking players who were never any good to begin with, like Barmby, Powell, Heskey, Phil Neville he still managed to keep a straight face. I don't think he really cares what other people think.

There's more to winning football matches than finishing off chances. Man U's problem isn't that they don't have people capable of scoring, it's that they're not creating enough chances to score. And I don't see why Fergie is desperate. I'm sure he hates being so far behind Arsenal at this stage, but he has never before acted out of desperation. He has a way of doing things, whether the team is doing well or not, and he sticks to it. In the long run, resting your important players will win you more games than it loses, and Fergie understands this.

It has been suggested that he went to Real to rejuvenate his career. I'm not sure what you mean by 'in trouble', even in mediocre form his place in the Liverpool team was guaranteed. There wasn't anyone close to challenging him for his place in the team.

If the midfield is the heartbeat of the team, Eriksson's England would have been pronounced dead at halftime against Portugal.