is wanye rooney world class ?

[buu1333]

Here are what I think his strength are

Long balls
long shots
free kicks
linking up with wide players
work rate (tracking back)

here are is weakness
Pace/ taking on players and beating them
unlocking defence through the middle. ( stats show hardly passes it to van persie this season for man utd, like to pass it two wide players).Also most of his assist are crosses him self.

has temper when cant get the ball.

It is almost like his weakness make him not world class for an attacking midfielder , to me

[eastcentral1]

His only real weakness is that he didn't have the attitude, determination or work ethic to become world class.

[WilBert]

So his only thing is three things? You could create an argument to disagree with each of those things you mention. Replace your words with similar ones. Drive, passion and hard work. We're back to what we term world class I suppose or we're back in class to be able to spell Wayne?

p.s. Good post/thread.

[buu1333]

my bad, miss spelt his name was very tired when wrote it . I am now still tired and cant sleep , very annoying

[golden bear]

Also most of his assist are crosses him self.

If he can cross the ball to himself to score goals he must be an unbelievable player never mind world class.

His lack of intelligence stops him being world class imo.

[murf]

He is a very good player but not world class IMO - based on my definition of World Class (would he get into a squad for the World to take on Mars). Even a slight push to say he is a guaranteed England starter.

It was his dynamism that stood out as a youngster, his actual skills are not that great (i.e. world class) and his dynamism has faded with age as expected.

[Ralfbergs]

He is a very good player but not world class IMO - based on my definition of World Class (would he get into a squad for the World to take on Mars). Even a slight push to say he is a guaranteed England starter.

It was his dynamism that stood out as a youngster, his actual skills are not that great (i.e. world class) and his dynamism has faded with age as expected.

So the next question is - is he Mars class?

But yeah, I don't think that Rooney could be considered World class at the moment - I mean he is a great attacker, good player etc, but there are many players that surpass him on the skill level, the speed level and lots of different things. Maybe there have been moments where he was closing in on being that level player, but as murf said - getting older hasn't done any favors for him.

[Zimmerman]

Still 1 in 2 (over 440 games for United).
Last two seasons appear to have been harder, but still 35 in 77 games (number of games played might be an issue).

What also makes his goal return impressive is his partners during his time at United.
ie he's rarely played as the out n out striker;

Van Nistelrooy
Saha
Ronaldo
Betbatov
Hernandez
Welbeck
Van Persie

Not has he been the first choice penalty taker (a quick google suggests he's taken 28 (scoring 17)).

Wasn't he also top assister in the CL this season?

[Ralfbergs]

Wasn't he also top assister in the CL this season?

That was Gerrard (13), Rooney was in split 4th place with 9 assists.

And yeah of course Rooney is a quality player and I'm not saying he isn't really good or anything like that, but for me top class is still at least a level higher

[buu1333]

Wasn't he also top assister in the CL this season?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzc220xjsCE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; at 0.30 was good, the rest were crosses maybe put him out wide for England in 433

[bluenosey]

Hasn't proved himself at international level, apart from Euro 2004.

Looked so good as a youngster. Was better in 2004 than now IMO. Lacks the directness of old.

Would maybe just make the squad for Brazil, Argentina or Germany.

Spend the rest of the World Cups/Euros to date getting wound up/sent off and having a go at England fans who paid a small fortune to cheer on the lads in South Africa.

One last chance to redeem himself for his country.

Otherwise he will just be another prima donna mercenary in the modern game, looking to renegotiate his 300K a week salary, or whatever it is, on an annual basis.

World Class is Messi, Ronaldo, Suarez, Ibrahimovic, Bale etc. Rooney doesn't make the grade.

[Zimmerman]

Wasn't he also top assister in the CL this season?

That was Gerrard (13), Rooney was in split 4th place with 9 assists.

And yeah of course Rooney is a quality player and I'm not saying he isn't really good or anything like that, but for me top class is still at least a level higher

Gerrard wasn't in the CL.

I was just generally musing (rather than responding to you Ralf).
I think I'm in the same camp as you. He's very good (but not top top class) at the moment.

He's not in the same league as Aguero, Suarez, Ibrahimovic types.
But he's in the next level down for me.

[Zimmerman]

Hasn't proved himself at international level, apart from Euro 2004.

Looked so good as a youngster. Was better in 2004 than now IMO. Lacks the directness of old.

Would maybe just make the squad for Brazil, Argentina or Germany.

Spend the rest of the World Cups/Euros to date getting wound up/sent off and having a go at England fans who paid a small fortune to cheer on the lads in South Africa.

One last chance to redeem himself for his country.

Otherwise he will just be another prima donna mercenary in the modern game, looking to renegotiate his 300K a week salary, or whatever it is, on an annual basis.

World Class is Messi, Ronaldo, Suarez, Ibrahimovic, Bale etc. Rooney doesn't make the grade.

He was 18 in 2004? He's been much better than that (and think he is still above that level). Has Messi proven himself at international level? Has/did Gerrard?

In truth, very few players ever do. I think it's a bit of a misnomer suggesting players need to prove it at a World Cup.


Hasn't Klose made the German squad? And Hulk and Jo for Brazil?
Have Spain got a forward?

Rooney would still make the squad for every country (and make the first team for pretty much all of them (arguable only not the Argues)?

[Ralfbergs]

Wasn't he also top assister in the CL this season?

That was Gerrard (13), Rooney was in split 4th place with 9 assists.

And yeah of course Rooney is a quality player and I'm not saying he isn't really good or anything like that, but for me top class is still at least a level higher

Gerrard wasn't in the CL.

I was just generally musing (rather than responding to you Ralf).
I think I'm in the same camp as you. He's very good (but not top top class) at the moment.

He's not in the same league as Aguero, Suarez, Ibrahimovic types.
But he's in the next level down for me.

Oh sorry, didn't notice that you meant CL, thought EPL. Then yeah he actually had the most assists (8), but in group stages he had 3, so plenty of those came against Bayer Leverkusen and Olympiakos I guess.

[Surprised]

He was described somewhere on FISO on as a flat track bully. Whilst that is a bit harsh I think he lacks the technical skill and attitude to be world class.
I don't think he would get into a World Eleven. It has been a few years since he has won any personal awards so I feel his best his behind him.

[murf]

Only the 13th highest scorer in TFF this year but on a PPG basis he rises to 4th behind the SAgS. Comfortably ahead of the likes of Ramsey, Yaya, RVP, Giroud, Ade, Lukaku etc but well behind the top 3. Sturridge was 3rd, outscoring Rooney by 27 points in just 2 games more.

So statistically, in a TFF stylee, still a very good player but not quite the very best.

(in case you think it was because Utd were crap this year, he was only 6th in PPG the previous year (5th if you discount Pantilimon) and well down overall (again) as he only played 30 times)

[Red Eye]

Yes but the season before was probably his worst/least productive.

Of course he wouldn't get in a World XI but come on it’s only an XI and Messi/Ronaldo are nailed on - how many forwards would it have? Certainly there would have to be numerous world class players who wouldn't get in.

Personally think Rooney has operated at 'world class' level, especially when being the main man up-front, but I think he has maybe lost that burst of pace he had when he was younger. Obvious to say that if United were better (esp. in midfield) Rooney would be better and if Chelsea had signed him and played him no.9 then I think they would have won the league and Rooney would have got easily 20+ league goals.

Also agree with Zimm that the ‘doing it at a World Cup’ thing is overplayed – players naturally will hit peaks and troughs and getting a peak to coincide with a three week window once every four years is probably as much luck as anything else. Don’t think Rooney has really been fit for a tournament since 2004 and obviously England are shit at that level (imo) because of our domestic style of play – that’s the reason so many players ‘struggle’ to perform for England like they do for their clubs.

Again, if Rooney were no.9 for Spain I think you’d find he’d have no trouble doing it at a major tournament, though I doubt anyone will ever live up to the Maradona benchmark people seem to look for.

[eastcentral1]

So his only thing is three things? You could create an argument to disagree with each of those things you mention. Replace your words with similar ones. Drive, passion and hard work. We're back to what we term world class I suppose or we're back in class to be able to spell Wayne?

p.s. Good post/thread.

Sorry, I'll spell it out. I think Rooney had the potential to be world class*, but he is not, and I think that's in large part because of his attitude.

There's been too many extraneous factors throughout his career: gossip scandals, renegotiating contracts, coming back from summer out of shape, falling out with the hierarchy etc.

Perhaps, without all that, he'd have fulfilled his potential.

*as far as world class goes, I don't think it necessarily means you'd be in the World XI. It's like an elephant - it's hard to describe, but you know it when you see it.

[bluenosey]

I'd like to see Hodgson play without Rooney in one of the friendlies.

[AkNotSpur]

Yes but the season before was probably his worst/least productive.

Of course he wouldn't get in a World XI but come on it’s only an XI and Messi/Ronaldo are nailed on - how many forwards would it have? Certainly there would have to be numerous world class players who wouldn't get in.

Personally think Rooney has operated at 'world class' level, especially when being the main man up-front, but I think he has maybe lost that burst of pace he had when he was younger. Obvious to say that if United were better (esp. in midfield) Rooney would be better and if Chelsea had signed him and played him no.9 then I think they would have won the league and Rooney would have got easily 20+ league goals.

Also agree with Zimm that the ‘doing it at a World Cup’ thing is overplayed – players naturally will hit peaks and troughs and getting a peak to coincide with a three week window once every four years is probably as much luck as anything else. Don’t think Rooney has really been fit for a tournament since 2004 and obviously England are shit at that level (imo) because of our domestic style of play – that’s the reason so many players ‘struggle’ to perform for England like they do for their clubs.

Again, if Rooney were no.9 for Spain I think you’d find he’d have no trouble doing it at a major tournament, though I doubt anyone will ever live up to the Maradona benchmark people seem to look for.

+1 - although I would add that if Rooney had ever achieved the same kind of physical fitness as Ronaldo, he might have reached another level

[Edmondson]

When he burst onto the international scene in 2004 he could beat players, he could lay through balls on for Owen's pace, and he looked like he would convert chances.

He had a great spell as the out and out striker for United a few years back before he injured his ankle.

The Rooney I see now, can still score the odd spectacular goal, he can drop deep and find players with rangey passes..but it's all a bit inconsistent. How many of his pot shots are total gash? He balloons stuff high and wide. He has ineffective games, where his passing is off. Rarely see him beat anyone anymore, looks short of a yard of pace, has the frustration thing when he is having a bad day, has this perennial not quite fit yet as coming back from injury thing...works hard on the pitch, but more of a busy fool, doesn't seem tactically aware, more of a 20 yard dash and sliding tackle type to get the crowd up.

He's miles off for me now. The very best Messi and Ronaldo are ultra consistent and have been for a few years now. Every single game they bring pace, skill and goals. Suarez could hardly have had a bad game for Liverpool this season, pace, skill, goals...but even when not scoring, creating chances and missing chances, but not in the pot shot balloon shot type way.

Not a fan of just rolling out the stats, yes he is a consistent premier league and international qualifying campaign player. If he had carried on his Euro 2004 form then he would have been world class, but currently he is way short, and doesn't deserve a place in England starting XI in 2 weeks time. I'm sure we will see him again in one of two remaining friendlies, so may sharpen up a bit, but ignoring reputation, he just simply isn't good enough on current form.

[The Councillor]

In my opinion I agree with the comments he is below the likes of Messi, xavi, iniesta, Ronaldo, pirlo, buffon etc,

But I still think he can get to be in that group if he does it in Brazil and the next euro's though highly unlikely.....

i think he has struggled fitness wise and to have the discipline to control his natural instincts on eating crap foods and he smokes doesn't he? , reminds me of footy's equivalent of Ricky Hatton...... always had to put extra effort in to get himself back to optimum playing level.

Then again, he definitely has claim to be greatest street footballer though, perhaps an accolade which is more important to him?!

I actually think Ashley Cole is the only world class player we have in england....and that is now coming to and end prematurely.......

[Darbyand]

One thing is pretty much for sure , his career trajectory is downwards. If you want to debate his world classness, look to what he's already done, not what he's (not) about to do.

LvG is a win win for United fans. If he can get Rooney performing and most importantly adhering to a system, great. If not, pretty sure he'll put him aside. Fergie was getting there, Moyes gave him a 10 month reprieve but the hour of reckoning is near!

[tedbull]

Been saying this for years to counter the clichéd "no better place for youngsters than at Utd under Fergie".

Though I do put some of the blame at the door of English fans and the media. If Rooney had come on the scene in another country he could have been anything now. Where else would an incredibly talented 16/17 year old be praised and encouraged more for his tracking back than for his ability on the ball?

He's had a brilliant career but really should have been something special.

[Darbyand]

Rooney did well for us in what you'd probably call his peak years. Sadly for England it was in a support role to the even greater talent of Ronaldo.

Fergie did exactly what he should have and you can't argue with the team results 2006-2009.

If Rooney was the talent people claim for him, he'd have been given a bigger role in that era and prospered more when Ron left.

[forestfan]

A more interesting question is where he ranks compared to his England predecessors - Shearer, Lineker, Owen. All of those hit the heights at at least one big tournament during their peak years, which Rooney hasn't done since he was 18, but in terms of consistent English top flight goalscoring he's ahead of Owen and not far behind the other two, and he may well outdo them all in terms of overall international goals, though obviously with a larger number of caps to his name.

[thebillfella]

A more interesting question is where he ranks compared to his England predecessors - Shearer, Lineker, Owen...he's ahead of Owen and not far behind the other two

Probably not too far off the mark comparison-wise IMO.

[Darbyand]

Good article here from Barney Ronay, one of the funniest football writers around. Seeing as people don't follow links, here's the transcript with my highights in bold:

Top-level footballers often tend to generate a very specific kind of emotion. In happier times this is a simple sense of joy at seeing them capering about in pursuit of a ball. Dwight Yorke for example – even in the later years when you half expected to look down and notice he was out there running around in a leotard and a pair of plimsolls – always managed to make the basic act of playing football seem unavoidably hilarious. Similarly, the sight of David Beckham scurrying about in an England shirt like a doomed, faithful cartoon horse tended to inspire above all a desire to burst into brave, hot husky tears of moon-faced joy.

It can be a more insidious process, too. In the case of Wayne Rooney the emotional register seems to have become inexorably jammed the other way, the needle forever stuck on red. Anger! Rage! Inconsolable fury! After a disappointing game against Norway on Wednesday and with a potentially gruelling Euro 2016 qualifier in Switzerland to come, Rooney rage is once again the dominant note around this new-build England team, with just a glimpse of the captain enough to inspire the now familiar background surge of vomit-flecked rage and derision. Oh, Wayne. How did this happen? And is it ever going to stop?

There is, of course, a broader trend here. Premier League footballers are an unpopular species generally, even among those who like and follow and indeed fund and support Premier League football. Yet the level of ambient Rooney rage seems not just disproportionate but unusually curdled and toxic, a kind of herd-spume within which more interesting questions of actual worth and value and merit can too easily be submerged. For one thing it is easy to forget right now what a sensationally effective, even rather joyful and unbound, footballer Rooney was in his very recent physical prime. He is still on course to become within the next 18 months the all-time leading scorer for both Manchester United and England, a phenomenal achievement for a player known as much for his graft and creativity, albeit one that will be greeted, by some, with a sneer of disenfranchised rage, as though Rooney has in some way cruised or cheated or extorted his way to this astonishingly fine sporting career.

Whereas from a sober perspective he looks more like a source of slight sadness right now. Enter: the Wazza Paradox. Here is a footballer who has been elevated to the pinnacle of what he could reasonably hope to achieve – captain of club and country – at precisely the stage in his career when he is no longer able to fulfil with genuine distinction either function. In mechanical terms it seems fairly clear what has happened. Rooney has in the past two years lost the vital twitch of explosives that underpinned so much of his effectiveness. With it has gone the quick-footed dribbling, the ability to create a gap from which to shoot so wonderfully from distance. Above all he has lost that sense of absolute joyful certainty in his own powers, reduced instead at times to whirling about fretfully between the lines like a dying crab, eyes fogged with grit, gargling brine and scurf, pincers snapping at empty air.



Is any of this Rooney’s fault? He has undoubtedly been caught smoking once too often (once is too often). Beyond this he is perhaps just unfortunate not to have been born with a different physique, the rangy, long-levered type that simply seems to run on and on, as opposed to his own endomorphic power-doughnut template. It has, let’s face it, been a long, hard 12 years at the sharp end for a player whose career was always likely to be a sprint rather than an endurance event.

If there is a more tangible source of frustration it is perhaps in the failure to develop a set of contingency skills, a deeper texture to his game that might sustain him in diminished maturity. There has been talk of a move into midfield but, as pointed out this week, there is some doubt at United that Rooney’s close-range passing is up to it, his short game suitably refined. And so he has continued – in the classic English style – to play exactly the same way, just with a fatally reduced sense of mobility, as though this is all a temporary interruption, a blip.

Beyond this there is a simple case of weariness here. Rooney’s flaws – the snarls, the trapped energy, the slot-mouthed mid-match TV close-up – have soundtracked the bad times too often. At its best sport is all about that endlessly seductive capacity for renewal and fresh dawns, but Rooney has presented something more realistic and familiar over the years, a sense of an entire adult life lived in miniature, form that brilliantly vital teenager who juggled the ball on the pitch against Turkey to this careworn England captain with all his flaws and omissions and fading reach: a living breathing reminder that every life is to a degree a matter of controlled youthful explosion followed by a levelling out and reckoning up, measuring the outer reaches of talent and possibilities, shadowed always by that sense of having meant, somewhere along the way, to do it all very differently, to have climbed higher, run further, that this was not – no, not this – what you meant to say at all.

Quite what to do from here is another matter. It seems fairly clear it was a mistake to have made Rooney England captain and thereby (for reasons that remain obscure) undroppable. England play best under Roy Hodgson when they play quickly in possession but too often recently Rooney has clogged the movement ahead of him in a system where he is no longer the best No10 or the best No9. Instead he seems to present a kind of roving black hole, the dark heart of this England team around which so much hopeful effort seems to flounder, and so much angst from the periphery coalesce.

In a happier world Rooney could still be a wonderfully useful senior player, a supersub, a voice of authority, his job not so much to lead this team but to ease the succession to those who must come next. Instead England will no doubt continue to play like England against Switzerland and the blame will continue to fall mainly on Wayne, who is in effect guilty of no more than a failure to adapt so far to an early footballing middle age, hoist at the head of a retreating army at the precise moment his powers to lead a decisive recovery have, for now, deserted him.

[tommymooney]

Very good - this hits the mark....

And so he has continued – in the classic English style – to play exactly the same way, just with a fatally reduced sense of mobility, as though this is all a temporary interruption, a blip.

[forestfan]

Lucky Man Utd have recognised his decline, and have an injury-prone 31-year-old and a player of similar age to Rooney coming back from major knee surgery waiting to step in for him...