Mou vs Roo

http://bln.gs/b/22co1t

You kidding

hey, one of these didn't have a bottomless bank card to buy the world's most expensive holding mid over the summer

i rue the mou but roo's a moo too

No competition. I don't really get why Moyes was so desperate to keep Rooney in the first place: "We've momentum and we can't afford to lose it tbh"- The '13-'14 summer transfer window thread for PL and beyond. It's not as if there's a massive clamour from the supporters to keep playing him - he was so bad at the start of last season it was a mystery why Van Gaal kept starting him (leading to the conspiracy theory* that there must be a clause in his contract that guarantees he plays every match unless injured) and when he finally got subbed off in one of those endless boring matches that have merged into one, there was a massive cheer that he was being pulled. When Mourinho came in and announced that Rooney wouldn't be used as a midfielder but only as a striker, I assumed he was setting him up to fail, to make it easier to bin him. But he still keeps picking him and today played him in midfield.

*I hope that's what it is

Signing Rooney to that contract probably more longterm damaging than ferguson handing over to moyes

I mean he's not a bad footballer for 330k a week, he's a bad footballer for a tenth of that. Throw in a political inability to reflect his performances and condition by putting him on unpaid leave until he chokes on big macs and it's a laughable situation

https://streamable.com/i6up

weekly twp compilations are the season's best new development

Just came here to post that same clip.

brilliant.

and yet Mourinho, not exactly noted for his patience with players who don't pull their weight, keeps picking him

The Pogba thing is just bizarre - it seemed so obvious that Mourinho was going to use him in a Lampard kind of role but he seems to be behind Fellaini a lot of the time. The whole team feels bent out of shape in an effort to fit Rooney in and the result is that it just doesn't function properly.

They're still at least two defenders and a proper holding midfielder away from the title even without Rooney.

There's a lot of "Mourinho needs time" guff going around, which conveniently overlooks the fact that he's never needed time before.

What I find really strange is that the team looked like a bunch of people who didn't really know where they were supposed to be playing or what they were supposed to be doing, which to a large extent has to be the result of the instructions they were given. And the substitutions were wank, which again suggests that Mourinho didn't really have a clue what to do about it. But...why? I've never liked him, but that's not because I thought he was a shit manager - I thought he was a very effective manager. I didn't like him because he was a nasty piece of work (too many obvious examples of this to bother offering up) and his teams could be cynical in the extreme. But by last December I'd reached the point of such extreme boredom with LVG's anti-football that I was quite happy to take Mourinho when Chelsea ditched him. I can't for a minute believe that he really thinks Rooney is justifying his place week after week or that he can't see what Matt said about Rooney's inclusion bending the team out of shape. So what's going on?

exactly. Rooney's shitness isn't in question, so Mourinho is either colluding in some fucked-up contractual politics that Utd have so far managed to keep under wraps, or he has suddenly become a v. bad manager. either way, that makes him a bigger liability than Rooney for the forseeable future.

Agree with all of that, yeah

Tho i do think mourinho has been on a dgaf trip since signing his last contract with Chelsea and has been in pre retirement mode perhaps.

i think dgaf is a more likely explanation than Roo being King of the Reptilian Shapeshifters or something, yeah

You presuppose that whatevers going on with mourinho somehow explains a decade of an entire nation's media, a superclub and several successive highest-level managers ignoring that his best energies were shot up the crumbling passages of a 60 benson/hedges-faced grandmother tart

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/sep/18/wayne-rooney-manchester-united-midfield-mess-jose-mourinho

Just throwing this out there but I wonder if Portugal winning a major trophy before he had the chance to become their manager might have deflated him a bit.

wish i could find that wonderful nakh post about jose completing his career path by arising to heaven on a przewalskis horse to the tune of the cl theme

if we still believed in jose the arch schemer and not the sullen rebarbative reactionary i guess it could all be seen as political play to give twp enough rope without disturbing the pundits, money men, squad acolytes

MOTD2 pundits still bigging up Rooney and saying he should be played as a defensive midfielder.

I mean it's gone past spooky, right?

What squad acolytes are there remaining? Is Mourinho really going to care about Phil Jones getting upset?

That compilation from the Watford game made me laugh out loud. "Another deep one from Rooney" felt deferential, like who are we to question his methods, Roo works in mysterious ways.

Has there ever been a situation like this before? A player that is mocked and hated by all fans and football fans, like a complete laughing stock, but continues to be picked by managers and praised by pundits? It is so weird. Hilarious but also kind of frustrating. How is he getting away with this? It feels unjust.

Is it true that he's mocked and hated by all football fans? I bet there's still loads who want to believe in the Rooney of 2004 or 2009 or even 11/12.

That deference exists with all England players above a certain stature, Gerrard was shite for years while still being fawned over, Michael Owen's one big goal in him etc. The only exceptions I can think of are when players decline very suddenly and then just retire, like Ferdinand.

^ yep, was going to mention Gerrard

Everyone's piling in now: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/09/19/manchester-united-captain-wayne-rooney-is-just-no-longer-good-en/

A player that is mocked and hated by all fans and football fans, like a complete laughing stock, but continues to be picked by managers and praised by pundits?

Paul Robinson doesn't count here, deems.

Gerrard was still p good for Liverpool - maybe shite for England. Even in his last season at Liverpool he was decent, despite the overhyping of the Pirlo role etc.

Is it true that he's mocked and hated by all football fans? I bet there's still loads who want to believe in the Rooney of 2004 or 2009 or even 11/12.

There are plenty, I'm sure. But he is a definite figure of fun and not just for ILX-types, I guess finding hatred on Twitter is easy but he really does have a legion of detractors.

Yeah I mean it does seem to be especially detached from reality in Rooney's case, it's the shunting him into positions to which is manifestly not competent and then pretending otherwise. He'd still probably be a reasonable #9 but there's zero case for playing him in that position over Zlatan or Rashford.

Gerrard comparison falls flat for several reasons imho. He wasn't great but still p dece at times. He wasn't put on as a striker either.

What makes this unique is Rooney persistently being played at positions that aren't his. I thought the whole 'obligated to play by contract' thing was illuminati conspiracy theory stuff, but now I'm not so sure. Because I can't for the life of me remember Mourinho of all people keeping a player in his teams that was playing so badly.

you don't remember gerrard playing the free role (aka "plz the stop fucking up my tactics captain marvel, love rafa" role) behind torres?

Gerrard was a barely competent DM and the number of goals Liverpool shipped during that otherwise amazing season should have provided some clue there, even without the slip.
Even earlier in his career he would tend to blow it against top-class opposition, comedy assists to Henry, Zidane etc. His best season was probably as an attacking midfielder and that free role did suit him pretty well but only with Alonso and Mascherano in there to free him of certain responsibilities.

Which isn't to say he wasn't a very good player but he was very... indulged in a way that other footballers wouldn't have been.

gerrard was brilliant in the free role behind torres! that was the best of gerrard!

Gerrard was a barely competent DM and the number of goals Liverpool shipped during that otherwise amazing season should have provided some clue there, even without the slip.

they're still shipping goals, don't think you can blame that on gerrard entirely. he was in no way as bad as rooney has become - he actually made a lot of goals that year, his assists figure was p high as far as i remember.

and he left fairly soon after he was done, or before he became a total passenger.

Even earlier in his career he would tend to blow it against top-class opposition

this isn't true at all - he was a big game player, too much so if anything.

Yeah fundamentally even in his dodgy last few seasons he was way better than Rooney now, but the overpraise and the overlooking of flaws is the same phenomenon, it happens to all talismanic England players. Beckham got it as well.

yeah for sure, i just think tho right now this roo situation feels unprecedented. it's exacerbated by the fact that like, even with gerrard at 34, liverpool probably didn't have a better alternative. man u have spunked hundreds of millions of pounds in recent years, and they're still playing this lost soul whose form is comically bad, plus "barnstorming midfielder to bad quarterback" is so much less unusual and silly than "striker to bad quarterback", particularly when it's rooney, who isn't like a ryan giggs type of footballer.

like it's as if, because say, ryan giggs did this and it worked well, roon feels somehow that it's a natural and normal thing, as you get older the team makes a new position for you so you can still keep playing, when the reality is giggs is prob one of the only times this actually worked.

Striker-to-quarterpounder position amirite?

I think we've established that Rooney doesn't count Lawrence Oates as a role model

it was fun when mark hughes became a defensive midfielder for the last two or three years of his career

Did that happen? Wtf I have no memory of that.

Trying to think of a decent striker-to-DM conversion. Dembele doesn't count because he was never much cop as a striker to begin with.

yeah i remember hughes as dm.

paul scholes sort of - he was a striker at the very start of his career.

i always used to wonder why full backs that can't defend weren't just made into wingers. like eg moreno, glen johnson etc.

rooney thing is so bizarre. hilarious but bizarre. i mean there's no way of knowing for sure obviously but i'm pretty certain that if pep had taken the utd job instead of going to city there's not a chance in hell rooney would be starting, he'd probably have been bombed out all together.

xp the few times i can remember glen johnson playing RW for lfc he was shite if i recall. i think that the skill set for a winger is different enough from a FB to make that transition difficult. just where they recieve the ball in realtion to the opposition, where they're facing, how much space they have etc

receive and relation that should be ffs

utd could do with a DM but a 3 of either carrick/blind(deep), pogba (leftish) derek/herrera (rightish) + zlatan, martial,rashford should be good enough i'd have thought.

I guess Mourinho did want to sign Rooney before, maybe he really loves him.

utd could do with a DM but a 3 of either carrick/blind(deep), pogba (leftish) derek/herrera (rightish) + zlatan, martial,rashford should be good enough i'd have thought.

Poor Mata.

Lol yes I forgot about Mata. Utd unbeaten this season with him in the line up. I've only seen one Utd game this season tbf and only saw 5 last season so what do I know. Find it hard to believe that pogba, mkhitaryan and zlatan arent their best 3 players by a distance so cobble together a system that suits those 3 would be a start. Totally forgot about schneiderlin and schweini as well. Oh and depay as well. By God there' s hundreds of em.

Mata played against Feyenoord tbh

If by November Utd are still playing a 4-2-3-1 and Rooney is the #10 rather than mkhitaryan or even Mata then Mourinho wants shooting.

Is it true that he's mocked and hated by all football fans? I bet there's still loads who want to believe in the Rooney of 2004 or 2009 or even 11/12.

There were, but yesterday felt like a tipping point. It's basically open revolt now

I'd be interested in hearing from huge ManU fans who still defend him playing tbh. Do they exist?

i know one or two who were defending him playing out of position for England at the start of the Euros but for some reason they seem to have come round to the "he's not a deep-lying mid" argument since the domestic season's started.

his few remaining supporters on the Utd side's argument basically boils down to "well who do we have that's better?"

they get given ammunition by games like Feyenoord where he doesn't play and the team is still shite, even though those occasions almost always feature thrown together second string sides

obviously the team has more problems than just Rooney but jesus christ getting rid of him solves so many of them in a single stroke

the whole thing is like a waking nightmare now. It defies all logic

Yeah just had a look over at redcafe.net and there's not much more on offer than "he's not the only one playing bad you know".

Never forget btw

Gerrard comparison is bizarrely illfitting

Giggs was shit for years FYI

It wasn't remotely the same and you know it

basically every paper has had a "drop Rooney" piece this week

It's all falling into place

Mourinho's played a blinder tbh

i want to believe

hmmm, I wonder who's been talking to his mates in the press tonight

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/09/20/manchester-united-manager-jose-mourinhos-criticism-of-players-na/

this whole campaign of luke shaw abuse over the years seems to have completely passed me by. handy limping labrador puppy for someone to hide behind tho i'd imagine

interesting story tho. i was thinking that, partly post-chelsea chastened but mostly carefully united-mythos-deferential given the charlton/fergie opposition, he'd been on his best behaviour biding his time for the moment. hard to believe he'd be miscalculating bollockings this early unless he's really lost the plot

Guardian have this story

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/sep/20/manchester-united-jose-mourinho-criticism-luke-shaw-efl-cup-northampton

Manchester United are not concerned about José Mourinho’s outspoken manner despite reports that Luke Shaw is unhappy at the criticism his manager levelled at him after the defeat at Watford on Sunday.

real cloak and dagger shit

is rooney starting as a forward tonight a sign of support or a sign he won't play vs leicester i wonder?

the latter. We're into the endgame here

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cs52mlTUEAAZw20.jpg

<3

ya

there'll be a belter of a Rooney compilation to come too

lol City in the next round

there'll be a belter of a Rooney compilation to come too

Hopefully featuring the bit where he 'controlled' the ball about ten yards off the pitch to break down an attacking move

^ somewhat mangled and ambiguous, but I know what I meant

this whole campaign of luke shaw abuse over the years seems to have completely passed me by. handy limping labrador puppy for someone to hide behind tho i'd imagine

Given the quote in the article, there aren't many Fergie-era remnants left in the squad - De Gea, Valencia, Carrick, TWP, Jones and Smalling. The first two strike me as unlikely, you'd think Rooney would be keeping his head down now, and the last two might still have a bit too much to lose. Has to be Carrick really.

Carrick is the other suspect alright. In the stories that came out about the players questioning LVG's methods last year it was notable that he and Rooney were the two players who supposedly staged some sort of intervention.

I still think it's Rooney though. He and Stretford are well known for courting the press. Took all the England hacks out for dinner prior to the Euros to get them onside

Also because Carrick doesn't seem a cunt

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"I think there was a Wayne before the Slovakia-England and a Wayne after the Slovakia-England," Mourinho said.

"I think it was too much but I still think, a big boy like he is, he has to face it in a strong way."

it's a bit early for the kind of paranoid pre-meltdown mourinho is already allowing himself to have.

Keeping an eye on Stormzy's YouTube channel for news of the Rooney benching. I think today might finally be the day.

I'm signing up for every conspiracy theory going if he starts today

(longtime lurker first time poster here):

this goes more to DGAF conspiracy than anything lizardy or contractual, but (post-brexit) isn't there like to be quite a potent impulse for someone like mourinho just thinking "ok i will give these pigheaded insular idiots EXACTLY what they are demanding, they deserve the consequences, it makes no real different to me now -- i will rub their stupid faces in their parochial stupidity"

he's in the downslope of his days as a manager; no one born outside these islands currently working in them can be finding themselves *more* patient and understanding of britishes delusion since june, surely

or is the football world just disconnected from that plane of politics?

DROPPED

kind of annoyed i am going to watch this game and was looking forward to some roo comedy.

when did neville become so overtly daily mail? he just said "i know it's not fashionable to talk about being mean to children nowadays..." before a "players are coddled" rant. i don't mind the latter so much but a seriously freakish intro.

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5df51f14cc6409ce3c026bfbdffd8c7db621aa0d/0_60_4675_2805/master/4675.jpg

or is the football world just disconnected from that plane of politics?

Mourinho's politics are somewhat to the right of Salazar fwiw.

for sure -- and my not-very-serious speculation was anyway been roundly exploded abt 1.3 seconds after i posted it -- but i guess i'm just interested in the degree to which the residual cultural sentiment of the football outlander ever breaks into these kinds of situations: there must be a BIT of mourinho just exasperated beyond bearing at the inward-looking idiocy of the world he's trying to establish some sort of professional success in

(of course the portuguese and the english are very long-time allies in terms of european politics -- still tied into the "oldest active treaty in the world", so there's that)

leicester aren't very good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToQ0n3itoII

Hohoho

https://twitter.com/piesportsbooze/status/779656176124436480

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

https://media.giphy.com/media/42mVGkLhOW0kU/giphy.gif

You kidding

― poor fiddy-less albion (darraghmac), Sunday, 18 September 2016 15:00 (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the quasi-religious requirement for people to pay their verbal tithes to rooney is fucking strange. like even lawro's "he is shit" comment here has to be about form and not ability. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/37461718

i dunno if i mentioned here that there's an acquaintance of a friend i've met about three times who's an evertonian, a drunk evertonian anytime i've met him. a year or two ago, we were chatting about football and i mentioned having doubts about rooney's ability. it became what i thought was one of those faintly, barely, ultimately not at all worthwhile 10-minute debates about an inane topic in which you engage with strangers, and i toned down my sarcasm and actual views accordingly, or at least i thought i did, a few minutes later he was aggressively demanding we go outside and have a punch-up due to my opinion of wayne rooney.

he's been hugely apologetic the two or three times i've met him since, either because it was out of character, or because he now just realises i was right and is mortified.

like people acting as if "he's going through a bad patch". when i first moved to london my flatmate kept buying these tomato plants. they weren't going through bad patches. they were fucking dying.

Born under a bad patch

utterly masterful display of Rooney apologism from Robbie Savage on BT tonight. Completely fluffed a chance which spooned on to Zlatan's head for the goal and Savage spends the rest of the game rhapsodising over his "movement"

He was standing completely unmarked in the middle of the box and took a step backwards

the conspiracy is real

Yup. The mismatch between the punditry and yet another woeful performance from him was ridiculous. Not one mention of that great counterattacking move suddenly grinding to a halt when Rooney massively overhit the pass and nearly sent it out for a thrown in.

Here it is: http://s21.postimg.org/u4yu0zp2f/Rooney_iloveimg_compressed_iloveimg_compressed.gif

Oof

the phrase "that's sunday league stuff" is bandied around a lot nowadays, but that...

lol

https://twitter.com/ForzaMundial/status/781606353253068804

UPDATE: still dropped

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKUOB8MN4Kc

UPDATE: he's on to save the day

and he's got another accidental assist lol

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/oct/04/wayne-rooney-sam-allardyce-england-left-me-battered

dunno if i've ever disliked a player more.

he makes shearer look humble

certainly p. extraordinary to see him talking about "being given the chance" to play in midfield as if he were a 12 year old wanting to transition to a new musical instrument

... from his own trumpet to second fiddle.

http://i.imgur.com/kFy6SuH.png

"I'm sure the instructions from Gareth - whether it's to play from the start or not to play - are instructions I will carry out to the best of my ability."

https://vine.co/v/5gj7pUuXZhx

come on, anybody can get caught out against top flight internationals

Guy is a carpenter by day, too.

Is it true Roo got booed at Wembley? Like, badly? Or is that tabloid talk?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3828607/Wayne-Rooney-watch-England-capatin-like-old-man-watching-grandchildren-frolic-garden.html

https://s.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/LJ4J_D5d34KjNC6L8g6Q8A--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3NfbGVnbztmaT1maWxsO2g9Mzc3O2lsPXBsYW5lO3B4b2ZmPTUwO3B5b2ZmPTA7cT03NTt3PTY3MA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/7a7f9f404043a317180f6a7067005ed8.jpg

posted this in the other thread but might as well go here too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1txLJu5BBsA

“But I have my apps and I can ask for food to also be delivered, which I do sometimes. You know the history of the paparazzi, for the hotel and the brand that sponsors me, the clothes brand, is amazing because they are there every day.

“Everybody knows the name of the hotel! Everybody knows the last arrivals of that brand! So for them, it is amazing.”

José Mourinho: My Manchester life is a disaster

i find this a bit weird - like yeah he's famous but why can't he go out for dinner? louis van gaal was publicly gorging himself on duck cantonese every week. now i'm sure jose has more paparazzi following but he could get a taxi, go somewhere nice, or just deign to rub shoulders with a few fans, big deal.

my shorter comment is: mou v deliveroo

he could get the chef at carrington to boil an egg for him

yeah is it totally unfeasible he could get a penthouse or something and cook his fucking dinner?

He's gone full Moyes at Sociedad. It's a sign he doesn't expect to stay long.

Either that or he knows he's losing the PR battle and wants people to think he's just sitting in his room playing Candy Crush and weeping.

"I want sometimes to walk a little bit and I can’t. I just want to cross the bridge and go for a restaurant. I can’t, so it is really bad. Buy a house? I do not know, I do not know."

Fergus Butler-Gallie ‏@_F_B_G_ May 3
Stood behind Jose Mourinho buying what appears to be a metric tonne of mango sorbet on the Kings Road.

Need a Mou vs Moyes thread. Things are almost perfect rn.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cvtvd9IWEAAJgOr.jpg

trolling everyone all at once, including himself

http://i.imgur.com/hXkWlnDl.jpg

Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho furious with FA staff over Wayne Rooney negligence

FA incapable of looking after a vulnerable 31 year old man.

"All the legends we loved drank like devils"

everything klopp says and does is brilliant

fave bit of that was - if i understood him correctly - him suggesting it was a nice collateral that people are able to find players in unprofessional states so they can get paid for the scoop. like civic pokemons or w/e

i mean there was no irony or implicit disdain for vulture behaviour whatsoever it was v charming

he is v charming imo

I like the bit about him having to go round filling people's glasses at the Christmas party.

been "disgracefully treated" apparently.

would explain the poor quality finish

...ing

yeah look

I've been disgracefully treated by good red wine in my time but I've only ever had myself to blame

FA officials decided to shepherd the pair away around 11pm but they later returned to the wedding, where Rooney downed red wine while shouting obscenities at the DJ.

He is also said to have chatted for hours with a couple of female guests and later became “touchy-feely” with several others while “bumbling” around.

At one point he told the DJ to “turn the f*****g music up!”. He was also heard yelling “shut the f*** up” at guests as he listened to music on a phone.

The Man United ace had earlier surprised guests by playing the piano — but a second attempt ended in embarrassment. A guest said: “He got back on around 4.30am and collapsed on the keys. His head was resting on them. A woman picked him up.”

Guests had asked Jagielka to help but he is said to have answered: “No, f*** Wayne, he’s paid more than me and is big enough and ugly enough to look after himself.”

mixing in just enough truth there jagz

Pleased to see Fergie has passed on his love of the piano to his charges. And red wine.

Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney says reaction to his late-night conduct on England duty has been "disgraceful" and has vowed he is "not finished yet".

what a session, still on it a week later.

Determined to nail "Imagine" one day.

does he do children's parties?

feel like a user need for "interior life of wayne rooney" is developing

No one needs confirmation that's it's over for him once and for all, but if you ever needed it all you'd need to do is take one look at his beard.

"Ugly enough to look after himself", harsh but fair imho.

Quite the scene though. Shouting at the dj to turn it up, then turn it down again because he's listening to tunes on his phone, at a party. What was on Rooney's iPhone, one wonders? The man is in despair.

Quite the scene though. Shouting at the dj to turn it up, then turn it down again because he's listening to tunes on his phone, at a party.

Not even just a party - a wedding reception for people he didn't even know

I've been thinking has this all been a set up to hasten his departure from the England team.

they spiked his tenth drink huh

i had a similar thought the other day, they offered him this as a more dignified way of getting dropped rather than just because he's shit at football

kinda like The Spider's Stratagem but with wedding DJs

theme of the traitor and the he-roo

it was under our noses all along

there was a trail of lager leading to the old abandoned footballer's room

Rooney at Colonus: the Interior Life

Et mou b-roote

Jagz agreed to do it in return for an undisclosed % of profit on roo's fourth book, tentatively titled "Daddy what did you do in the world cup?"

answer: a shit