Well England’s World Cup journey is over, ending with an humbling 4-1 thumping from Germany.
Much has been made of Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal but the plain and simple answer was that England just were not good enough and now the autopsy is under way fingers are being pointed and quite a few in the direction of Old Trafford.
Wayne Rooney was in electric form during the season, bagging 34 goals for United before an ankle injure and a groin injury slowed him down. Rooney suffered ankle ligament damage on March 31st against Bayern Munich but just days later on April 7th he lined up for the first team in the return leg, a game United needed to win.
He started brightly but faded out as United crashed out of the Champions League and hasn’t looked the same player since. He continued playing as United battled to the final day in an attempt to snatch the Premier League title away from Chelsea and even picked up another injury, this time his groin.
Many think his performances at the World Cup are as a result of the fact he wasn’t fully fit. The blame is being laid at Rooney and United’s door but anyone with these kind of thoughts need to take a look at themselves and ask why exactly Rooney not ‘showing up’ is the cause of England crashing out?
All through the season I have had to endure the jibes of people calling United a ‘one man team’ and prophesying what would happen to United’s season if Rooney got injured. These same people laughed when we lost to Chelsea, crashed out of the Champions league and drew with Blackburn without Rooney claiming that we were indeed a one man team so isn’t it now ironic that these same people are pointing the finger at Wayne for his lacklustre performances at the World Cup.
The last time I checked football was played by a team of 11, so why is Rooney being singled out for poor performances when there were others who under performed just like him? England sadly were as much a one man team as United were and when Rooney wasn’t firing neither did England. There was no back up plan as United tried with Berbatov etc rather they continued with the same plan.
There are a number of other players who were equally as bad as Rooney but having been built up in the press the way he was, Rooney is the easiest target. I said before he is likely to be the scapegoat and it is looking that way. The whole notion of building your team around one player leaves you susceptible to this sort of thing and unfortunately, as we saw at the tail end of last season, when it goes wrong it does so spectacularly.
Rather than blame Rooney for not performing or United for continuing to play him ask why there was no back up plan having seen that the original plan wasn’t working. England’s problems lie way deeper than Rooney under performing and in simply fingering him as the culprit for their failings it means nothing will have been learned from this humbling experience.
The fact is the English are not very good at all, there best player (Rooney) had a poor tournament. They are all over-rated by an insatiable media that demands OTT expectations.
The foreign players in the premireship make the english look a lot better than what they are.
There was never any doubt from the group stages that england would get knocked out as they never inpsired any confidence. In the cold light of day the english need to learn how play to there strengths and have that mental toughness to see it through and rid themselves of the interia that inhibits them terribly.
I’d agree with Rahim that team England are overated, but would disagree for the most part that the players are overated.
True enough, the EPL has a lot of foreign talent, but most of the players on team England are among the most important players for their clubs – so if anything it only proves their quality for them to shine alongside foreign players.
Do you really think Rooney’s true colours were shown in the WC, and that Algeria is better competition than most teams in the EPL?
My take on the England’s failure was the lack of depth for key positions, especially on the wings and a holding midfielder. They essentially used central midfielders for the entire midfield selection, 3 of which are attacking. The result was an imbalanced attack with poor passing and terrible marking. Barry was also unfit and overated which is disasterous for such a key position.
Beyond that, and more importantly is a poor mentality on the team. It’s underperformed for so long and talent is not the only answer to turn it around. Sure this Germany team is better than people expected, but how can you explain guys like Podolski and Klose who elevate their game at the World Cup far beyond their normal performance. By your logic Rahim, Podolski must be a better player than Rooney if the World Cup is the final measure of a player’s abitlity.
There will likely always be talented players emerging in England, the question of a winning mentality on the world stage though is more of an enigma.
@jonathan, true true. Some players really perform well in such tournaments compared to their club matches. I think Capello made a mistake playing two attacking midfielders in the world cup.
I just dont know why any of you are surprised at this. Gary and Phil Neville, David Beckham and now Wayne Rooney. One thing in common all made scapegoats for Englands abject failure, all United players. The crap being wriiten about Rooney is nothing short of disgusting. If you dont make chances for the bloke how can he score? The entire England team were pathetic but oh no the blame is laid fuly on Rooney and once again Uniteds door. Funny how in four games he has gone from amazing to crap according to England fans and the media. I hope he tells them to stick their England team up their ass cos im certainly finished with them now.
I am an england fan and a big time Man Utd fan .. But when it looks like a duck and quaks like a duck … better taste the coffee and accept that it is a freaking DUCK…
we watched 2 worldcups that Rooney bombed in and 1 Eurocup where England did not even qualify because we were all sitting in front of our TV sets hoping and preying he will perform.. But he did NOT..
Last season in Man Utd he was a hit because all he did was convert Headers..
He is a good player but not the One that leads a team to success on his shoulders.. So as an England fan i am now hoping he fucks up big time this season so we dont have to see his miserable face in front of the TV set cursing at us for complaining about his game, in the Euro cup..
Manchester united was great before rooney, beckham, Niselrooy..etc..
sabotage ..when you have no other option..
as for Danny Salford Red..
Lets talk about making chances.. how many chances has rooney created in the worldcup ???
Watch David villa who became a star this worldcup, Watch how many chances were made granted to him.
Pass & Rush is the name of the game when others make chances for the star forward to score, When you do not have players who can “DODGE”. That is what works in Premiere league but not in WORLD CUP.
Please dude wake up..
Worldcup is where you get to see talent in its flesh, and for rooney go watch the worldcup again, you can count the number of time he touched the ball with his feet.
By the way Beckham was just criticized for getting a red card against argentina and he was not the STAR FORWARD (that is the guy that scores).