BluubaldersI’m sorry, but this is just not true.
Rooney’s problems are caused by, in order of importance:
Persisting , on the whole,
with ridiculous tactics in terms of positioning of FB’s, and, at times CH’s
Poor selections - eg ‘s are putting Sunjic, who is crucial to a team like ours in right midfield, and then dropping him altogether, meaning we got murdered through the middle as well S in the (non-existent) FB areas.
Starting, God-love him, Juke in some games
Poor subsitutions - I have more sympathy here as we have no viable alternatives to Stansfield.
Publicly criticising the poor performances that result from his tactics.
Injuries (more recently) have not helped, but most of his issues are totally self-inflicted
Oh come on he has only started Juke 3 times this season, we have 2 recognised strikers and the other is Hogan.
Injuries (more recently) - that is is a stretch, he has been without Laird for all but a couple of games where he hasn't been properly match fit, had Long fit for first 3, didn't get Buchanan back until the Sheffield Wednesday game only to lose him again over Xmas and hasn't had any opportunity really to utilise Anderson, Roberts or Hall
And as for this FB thing of playing too high, maybe you are right or maybe we just simply have a largely inadequate centre half playing at right back and a left winger now LWB playing in a back 4 in Longelo who, as last season gets forward well but is all over the shop at times as a conventional full back.
Conversely if we play our full backs deeper, keep two defense minded midfielders, have no out and out striker and only one winger in the whole squad the criticism would revert to a team who can largely defend but cannot score.
Sunjic, I agree, Rooney probably was too overconfident in Belik playing as the one holding midfielder.
Long was dropped well before he was injured
Oh come on he has only started Juke 3 times this season, we have 2 recognised strikers and the other is Hogan.
3 times too many, he should never start, he doesn't suit any style that we want to play, he makes us worse, sadly.
Injuries (more recently) - that is is a stretch, he has been without Laird for all but a couple of games where he hasn't been properly match fit, had Long fit for first 3, didn't get Buchanan back until the Sheffield Wednesday game only to lose him again over Xmas and hasn't had any opportunity really to utilise Anderson, Roberts or Hall
JE barely had Laird, didn't have Roberts or Hall, and was without a fit Dembele for all but 3 full games. As has been mentioned, Long wasn't injured initially, he was dropped from the team. They've both had to make do with injuries
And as for this FB thing of playing too high, maybe you are right or maybe we just simply have a largely inadequate centre half playing at right back and a left winger now LWB playing in a back 4 in Longelo who, as last season gets forward well but is all over the shop at times as a conventional full back.
Longelo was fine against Huddersfield and WBA, arguably man on the match in both, because he was in a functional system.
Conversely if we play our full backs deeper, keep two defense minded midfielders, have no out and out striker and only one winger in the whole squad the criticism would revert to a team who can largely defend but cannot score.
Nobody is asking for that, and we never played like that before, we had one very attacking full back, two wingers, a 10 and a striker, we attacked with as many players as we do now, scored more goals and conceded way way fewer. Even Sunjic was regularly popping up in opposition box and getting big chances, even though it is repeatedly (incorrectly) said that he had both midfielders on 'the toes' of the centre backs
"we had one very attacking full back, two wingers, a 10 and a striker, we attacked with as many players as we do now, scored more goals and conceded way way fewer"
... and played a lot less long balls under JE than we have under WR
Knighthead managed by Tom Wagner is successful at taking struggling businesses and turning them around.
So based purely on business, why would you keep a manager of that new business if he can't run it properly.
You wouldn't.
New manager required.
Thanks Tom
“Longelo was fine against Huddersfield and WBA, arguably man on the match in both, because he was in a functional system.”
This sums up the issue, and is what is so maddening about posters claiming that, all of a sudden, we have such terrible players.
The players, who were looking confident, organised, capable, with great team spirit etc have now lost all 4 of those things. They were playing some great football too at times.
Not ALL the time, but, in the round the overall performances were light years ahead of now.
It all got ripped up - they were asked to change the whole way of playing overnight. Then after a few games it got tweaked a bit, then changed again, and again.
The players, who everyone rated, are now, apparently, poor.
Actually what they are is confused, devoid of confidence, and not knowing what they are supposed to be doing/what might happen next.
Because we have some good players, they are capable of good passages of play, even good halves.
The pro-Rooneyers misinterpret this as “progress”. It is not - it is some half-decent players doing some half decent stuff sometimes, IN SPITE of the tactics employed/confusion created by Rooney.
Allowing our opponents umpteen goals/ really good chances per game, as we have in almost all of them, is not progress
JE clearly was managing to get them playing consistently well enough to manage 1.6 points per game, compared to WCW's 0.7 points per game.
MiguelagennThe thread will be about 3 pages long by 5pm.
By 4:19pm