The Rooney Conundrum : Undroppable, Unsubbable, Untouchable

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Ok, this has gone on long enough. This will be the 4th annual “Rooney is rubbish” article I’ve posted on this site. First it was back at the tail end of the 2013 season when I thought he was on the decline and that United should sell him while he had some value, because it was only ever going to go south from that point.

Then I expressed hope, that under a new manager (LVG at the time) and a whole new raft of players that came with him, Rooney might be able to find himself some form again. Last year my tone was one of “If United and England want to move into a new era, they need to leave Rooney behind”. This year I’m just starting to feel sorry for him.

As sorry as I can for a guy earning such ludicrous amounts of money; but even putting the money aside for a second, just look at him. Look at his performances, I’ve gone from being mad and frustrated at watching him play to just cringing at the sorry state he has now become.

He looks like a man who just can’t keep up, simple as that. Both physically and mentally at this stage, the game is moving at too fast a pace for him to keep up with either his feet, or his brain.

He needs too many touches to take a simple ball under control – assuming he actually gets to control it and isn’t disposed by the time he sorts his feet out. He is routinely caught in possession, usually an opposition player nipping in and stealing the ball away while Rooney is taking an absolute age to look up, observe his surroundings, process the situation, decide what pass to attem…..oh, the balls gone.

Again. If I were to describe his passing as erratic, I would be describing one of his better performances of late. When he shapes to have a shot (and then nearly always decides against it at the last second), his body language sends a message of a player who knows this isn’t going to end well. Like when you see a full back running onto a loose ball to attempt a 30 yarder with their bad foot. It just looks awkward, unnatural and clunky. This is Wayne Rooney we’re talking about.

Everyone ages and time waits for no man. Some players are more keenly aware of their body and its needs, and have the foresight to be able to adapt those needs in order to be able to extend their playing careers. Rooney has never been one of those players. Rooney was always a player who routinely struggled to keep his weight down.

A player, who even at his peak, would take a little longer than others to get back to fitness after an injury or a lay off, he was never going to be one of those players to play well into his 30’s. But to see such a drastic decline, so young, it’s as shocking as it is saddening.

Rooney broke onto the football scene at a very young age, and has been pretty much playing first team football since he was 16. There are a lot of miles on his clock, and in his younger days, he was the kind of player who would ‘cover every blade of grass’ and run himself into the ground for his teammates, but it seems that all that hard graft has caught up with Wayne a lot earlier than most would have anticipated. Rooney at 30 looks less mobile than Giggs did at 40.

But none of this would be a problem, if it wasn’t for the fact that he seems virtually undroppable. Undroppable, unsubbable, untouchable, that’s the Wayne Rooney situation in a nutshell. United have had a lukewarm start to the season, without playing exceptionally, they won their first three games, but then proceeded to lose their next 3.

And while everyone around him is feeling the wrath of Mourinho, Rooney seems to be escaping any and all criticism. Everyone else is getting subbed off, dropped or publicly lambasted, while Rooney just carries on, stinking up the place with immunity.

Rooney isn’t the only problem in the United team at the minute, but he is one of the biggest issues, and the bottom line is, he is holding the team back. There is nowhere to fit him into the team anymore without hampering the overall balance and collective unity of the side anymore.

For a couple of seasons, the cracks could be papered over by shifting him around the pitch and shoehorning him into different formations and positions. When he would have a poor run as a striker, sections of the fans and media would be calling for him to be played as a number 10. He’d string together some inadequate performances there and then get moved to midfield.

A couple of half decent performances against underperforming sides, and people would be hailing him as the next Paul Scholes, until he played against a team with an actual midfield in it, and the gulf in class would be made abundantly clear. Then there would be a demand for him to be a striker again, and the whole farcical cycle would repeat itself.

Now though, squeezing him into the team means other, better players have to play out of position to accommodate him. We had this situation a few seasons ago when RVP was saying his game was suffering because other players were trying to occupy the areas he was suppose to be taking up.

The signs were there back then, he is just getting in the way. Record signing Pogba is playing deeper than he would normally be accustomed to, or Mkhitaryan is forced to play wider than he normally does, all to allow Rooney to waddle around areas of the pitch that other, more dangerous players could occupy.

It baffles me, surely if you are spending big money (massive money in Pogba’s case) to bring in the likes of Pogba and Mkhitaryan, then you would surely want to play them in the positions on the pitch that they can cause the most damage to the opposition, right? Shouldn’t it be that simple? Why spend the money on these kind of players only to handcuff them in how effective they can be?

Or when Mourinho does decide to move Rooney out of the center and shunts him out to one of the wings, you are greatly reducing your attacking threat from the wide areas of the pitch. United have players like Rashford, Martial and Lingard in the squad who are all young, fearless, full of confidence and have bags of pace who can all do a much better job out there than Rooney can offer.

United looked to Zlatan Ibrahimovic this summer to help them lead the line. A calculated gamble, but a gamble nonetheless, having someone like Zlatan, who is in the twilight of his career, requires having tons of pace and energy around him, something Rooney simply can’t offer.

Zlatan is great, he really is, but he isn’t as mobile as he used to be, and pairing him with Rooney is a recipe for disaster. If you throw Juan Mata into the mix, you may just have the slowest attacking line I can ever recall in football.

They must be a dream to defend against. Surely surrounding Zlatan with the likes of Martial, Rashford and Mkhitaryan with Pogba charging in powerfully from deep, is a significantly scarier thought for defenders than a bunch of slow players, ponderously passing the ball 5 yards sideways to one another, in the vain hope that a gap is miraculously going to appear in the defensive line?

I genuinely can’t think of a single hypothetical United starting 11, in any formation, that wouldn’t be improved with Rooney’s omission. There is no position on the pitch I can put him, where I wouldn’t think someone else can do it better. Wayne Rooney has somehow turned into the Man United version of Steven Gerrard.

He was once a great player, but too many Liverpool fans were too blindly loyal to see he was decline so much that he was a detriment to the team. People will point to the fact that he has a goal and a couple of assists this season, so he can’t be that bad, but I can’t help thinking about the goals United may have scored without him in the side.

I have no doubt in my mind that Sir Alex Ferguson would have sold Rooney in the summer of 2013 had he not retired instead. Since then, I’ve been waiting for a manager to have the balls to do what needs to be done. I genuinely thought that Jose Mourinho of all people – for all his flaws – would have the balls to drop him, but even he seems to be backing down in this game of chicken.

Rooney has a ridiculously large contract at United, the kind that he wouldn’t get anywhere else, so the likelihood of him leaving anytime soon is way off the cards. It’s a problem United fans are going to have to endure for some time to come, but I really struggle to see how the team’s fortunes can get any better while Rooney is such a central figure.

by Andrew Furlong

Twitter: @andrew_furlong

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Mourinho and that uneasy feeling

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A little over a year ago I wrote an article on here where I spent the better part of 2000 words calling Jose Mourinho an asshole. I was pretty unapologetic about it. However, there was this one particular paragraph that filled me with dread as I typed it, where I contemplated the potential future destinations for Mourinho should/when his second Chelsea spell come to its inevitable conclusion. I postulated that he was rapidly running out of options when it came to big clubs, but I couldn’t help shake, nor rule out, the feeling that he would end up at Man United.

It seemed logical enough. Mourinho was struggling at Chelsea, United were struggling under van Gaal, many United fans felt like he should have been the man to replace Ferguson only a few years earlier. It felt like it would be a case of better late than never. We all know it came to pass, and the United fans who loved and always wanted The Special One were rapturously delighted with themselves, while the ones who never liked Mourinho were left feeling…..confused.

Clearly, you’re not going to stop supporting your team just because of one managerial appointment – especially one who is historically a very short term manager anyway. But you do end up trying to re-evaluate your previously established opinions, or at least try your best to focus on the positives instead.

Even if he is arguably the most unlikable personality in football over the last decade or so, he clearly has to have some positives, right? Clearly, Jose Mourinho is “Big Time”, he is a main event, a special attraction and manager who is genuinely in the elite bracket of managers in the world. You ask someone to name the top 5, or even maybe top 3 managers in the world, and you will almost certainly hear Mourinho’s name being mentioned. That matters.

It matters because being one of the elite managers in the world gives you an extra kind of pull in the transfer market. An extra kind of pull that money and big wages alone just doesn’t quite provide. Top players want to play for top clubs, they want to earn top dollar and they want to play for the top managers. Despite both managers having a seemingly bottomless pit of money, you only have to look at the caliber of player that van Gaal was acquiring, and then look at Mourinho’s shopping list this summer to get an idea of what I’m on about.

Managers like Mourinho want to shop off the top shelf. While he won’t turn his nose up at a bargain, he isn’t actively looking for them either. He will identify the player he wants for a specific position, and then he’ll do (pay) whatever it takes to get his target. United needed that this summer. We all love developing academy products and investing in youth  – and Rashford, Martial, Lingard and Shaw is a good collection of young players who have been either invested in or promoted – but after the last couple of years, United need to be just as interested in addressing the here and now as they are in what’s coming down the line.

And Mourinho is the perfect man if you’re interested in the addressing the here and now. Mourinho, along with players like Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba are the kind of presences and personalities that help a team create a winning mentality. They’re all winners, and while some may justifiably call them arrogant or cocky, its important to remember that cockiness will often breed confidence, and confidence creates a certain swagger, which in turn can lead to winning things and the whole process just creates a self fulfilling prophecy. Stuff people like Connor McGregor would call The Law of Attraction.

Everything seemed to be going pretty smoothly; interviews and press conferences were filled to the brim with honest, direct and positive answers and sound bites. United had won their first 3 games of the season, and while they weren’t Earth shatteringly good, they are at least looking a bit more like United again. Maybe Mourinho has matured? Maybe the last few months of his Chelsea career humbled him a little. Maybe he isn’t interested in the short term, scorched Earth methods of winning, and is more interested in finally settling down, sowing some roots and building a legacy. I mean, he didn’t just turn up to his first training session and start pulling Juan Mata’s hair and then sell him within a week, that counts towards at least some kind of new maturity, right?

Focusing on the positives can be a good thing; but by its very nature, if you’re focused on one aspect, you can be inadvertently turning a blind eye to something else, and just as I was starting to acclimatize to the new surroundings, he goes and gives the kind of post match interview and press conference that just gives arise to that feeling of unease I had been suppressing these last few months.

The Manchester derby at the weekend was extra interesting this season for a multitude of reasons; not least the first Premier League clash of two of footballs most heated rivals,  Guardiola v Mourinho. Footballs answer to Stone Cold v The Rock. United lost, and my eyebrows inched further and further up my forehead as I listened to Jose deflect a lot of blame and attention away from him, and onto his players. Questioning players bottle, their character and their ability to carry out tactical instructions were the words of a man who maybe didn’t learn the harsh lesson of alienating the last two dressing rooms he was in charge of. He did say that ultimately he is the manager, so it’s his fault……for picking the players not able to follow instruction. Technically, he did take some of the blame, but there were enough caveats to it for us all to know who he really thought to blame was.

It was clear United got something wrong in the first half on Saturday, and whether that was down to the wrong tactical set up, or the players not getting the tactical set up, figuratively throwing the players under the bus, instead of just saying “we got it wrong, and then we fixed it” seems an odd approach to take this early into your managerial reign.

It would be lovely to be able to say that the players should be able to just the comments on the chin and move on. They’re professionals, they’re adults, they’re handsomely paid, and if they have a stinker, they should be able to accept it when the manager says they had a stinker. Unfortunately, footballers can be hyper sensitive, delicate flowers at the best of times, where confidence can be a fragile mistress; and Mkhitaryan and Lingard could be forgiven if they feel a little singled out, with the finger of blamed pointing squarely at them.

If you were putting together a 2 disc Greatest Hits compilation of Mourinho’s controversial moments and comments, then what was said at the weekend wouldn’t even be close to making the cut. Nobody is up in arms (least of all me) and campaigning for someone to please, for the love of God, think of the children, but the comments do serve as a timely reminder for United fans of just who they have gotten into bed with. The unease that comes from thinking that a meltdown or bust up is just around the corner may come and go, but it’s always there. That’s just the price you have to pay to have Jose Mourinho being the guy who is charged with returning the club back to winning ways.

by Andrew Furlong

Twitter: @Andrew_Furlong

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Clean Slates and Rejuvenation: Sterling, Fellaini and Hazard

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Raheem Sterling has suffered a tough last 18 months of his footballing life. Ever since his BBC interview where he made it clear he didn’t see his future at Liverpool, he endured a big money, but unceremonious exit when he moved to Man City. Life on the blue side of Manchester started well, but ultimately he failed to live up to the hype and hefty price tag, and Liverpool were left thinking the got the best out of the deal. This was capped off with a dismal display at the Euros during summer, where despite nearly everyone in the England squad underperforming, Sterling seemed to be singled out in particular. Been booed and jeered by his own fans, he became something of a poster boy for everything that’s wrong with the modern footballer, the king of the “too much, too soon” generation.

Things have started to turn around for Raheem in the last few weeks, arguably City’s man of match in each of their opening three league games this season, Sterling looks like a new man since starting life under Pep Guardiola. In the midst of the pointing and laughing last season, many seem to have forgotten that there is a pretty good player in there. He looks sharp, confident and focused. While last season he was plagued with indecision and self-doubt, he now has a ruthlessly precise quality to his game again.

Sterling seems to attribute his revival in form to the confidence and belief that his new manager has showed in him. A simple text message is apparently all it took to put Sterling’s doubts at ease. When England were dumped out of the Euro’s at the hands of Iceland, and the Sterling hate had reached its peak, Guardiola messaged his under fire winger and told him that “If you try for me, I’ll fight for you. You are a big part of my plans.”

We often hear about players who need the old “arm around the shoulder” type of man management. Sometimes a little kiss and a cuddle, and to be told how special they are is all that’s needed to unleash the inner sports beast. This early in the season its impossible to tell if Guardiola’s arm around the shoulder style with Sterling is a short term shot in the arm, or if it will garner a more long term revival, but it’s a case of so far so good Sterling as he looks like he is set to play a key role in any plans City have of challenging for the title again.

Just across the training fence, there is another revival of sorts going on at the United quadrant of Manchester; Marouane Fellaini is still at Man United this season, and not only is he still there, he has started all 3 of United’s Premier League fixtures so far. Two summers ago, if you asked United fans or a bookies about the afro-haired Belgian, he was a sure thing to be sold in the first summer under Louis van Gaal, and again last summer, but he somehow managed to survive the chop. The arrival of Jose Mourinho to Old Trafford this summer, was again almost certainly going to mean that the days were numbered for Fellaini, but yet here we are.

Fellaini hasn’t endured the most positive of relationships with the United faithful. He has had some moderate highs, but the majority of his career as a Red Devil has been disappointing. It was hard for United fans to warm to him initially, David Moyes’ only signing of the 2013 summer window, he became almost synopsis with the failed Moyes era, an on field embodiment of the Moyes reign. Moyes returning to his old club for his only signing showed a lack of imagination or creativity; while waiting until four days after his buyout clause had expired before signing him and therefore paying more than they had to, was a brilliant illustration of why Moyes had earned the nickname Dithering Dave. A lack of imagination, no creativity, and a bit dithering, could all be used to describe Fellaini’s life on the pitch during his first few seasons at United.

But, yet here we are. Fellaini is entering his fourth season at Old Trafford, and for the first time, he seems to have found himself a square hole to fit his square peg. Arguably the most surprising candidate, he has seemingly been the chosen one to partner Paul Pogba in the revamped United midfield. Maybe it shouldn’t be all that surprising, Mourinho does normally like the characteristics that Fellaini has in abundance. Mourinho likes big men, especially down the spine of the team, and Fellaini is a player who not only won’t shy away from a physical battle, he is the kind of player who actively goes looking for them whenever possible. A giant of a man who is useful at set pieces in both boxes, he can chip in with goals here and there too. But most of all, he can be a real f**king bastard when he wants to be. And Mourinho loves a bit of that.

I can’t help but feel that Fellaini’s involvement in the team, is somewhat dependent on how long Mourinho decides to persist with keeping Wayne Rooney in the starting 11. Persisting with Rooney, in the form he has been in for the last while, is effectively like playing with 10 men for the most part, and the formation required to shoe horn in the captain does lend itself to having Fellaini anchoring a midfield with the energetic Pogba beside him. Should Rooney’s form eventually see him dropped, and United move to a 4-3-3, I can see the other midfield options becoming more prominent in Jose’s thoughts. For now however, while he may be a lingering monument to the dark David Moyes days, Fellaini is enjoying a resurgence in form, and if Rooney can follow his lead and maintain his place on merit rather than name, then maybe Fellaini can have a key role to play in the new Man United.

One last player who looks like his old self is former Player of the Year Eden Hazard. Hazard is probably the most interesting case of the three, because it’s not that long ago when he was being talked about and grouped with the bracket of players just below the Messi, Ronaldo and Suarez group. Hazard felt like his star had been established and while Sterling and Fellaini had differing circumstances for their poor form, Hazard just feels like he was suffering from a case of the “can’t be arsed’s”.

A season ago, Hazard was almost unplayable for the title winning Chelsea side. A team set up to be a resolute defending machine, the game plan was routinely 10 players saying “we got this defensive thing down, you go and win us the game”, and he often did. Then something changed, he seemed to fall out with then manager Jose Mourinho, and proceeded to just fanny about the pitch for about 8 months.

There were a lot of reports coming off the back of his POTY season that Hazard had his eye on a move to Real Madrid or PSG, and maybe when those moves failed to materialize (maybe due to a hefty price tag put on his head), he lost some of his motivation. I’m only postulating on what might have been the cause, as there was a bit of a chicken and egg situation going on there. Did the poor form come as a result of his falling out with Mourinho, or did they fall out because of the poor form?

Either way, Hazard seemed to be drifting aimlessly and his season was about to fizzle out until the day he decided to be personally affronted by the notion that Spurs might win the league. He started speaking out in the press in the run up to the key clash verses Tottenham at Stamford Bridge with just a couple of game to go; essentially saying that he was going to personally make sure Spurs wouldn’t win the title. And that’s what came to pass. In an ugly game where Hazard was largely a passenger, Spurs were coasting 2-0 with about 10 minutes to go when Hazard suddenly remembered all his trash talk, and also remembered just how good a player he is and decided to turn it on again. He was masterful in the closing 10 or so minutes of that game, creating one and scoring another to mathematically end Spurs’ hopes and dreams. And he looked so happy doing so.

Hazard flipped a switch that night, and has seemingly decided to leave it in the on position ever since. If he can manage to self motivate, and stay on the right side of new manager Antonio Conte, we might be back to having a world beater on our hands.

It’s interesting to note that the upturn in fortunes of the three players discussed coincide with all three working under new managers this season. Maybe it’s a change in atmosphere, a new style of play, a new ethos around camp, or just a good old fashioned clean slate but whether it’s a young man trying to find his feet, an outsider trying to find somewhere to belong, or a talented maverick trying to rediscover his best form, all three will provide an interesting sub plot to the season as it progresses.

by Andrew Furlong

Twitter: @andrew_furlong

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Paul Pogba and the (100) million questions

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It’s looking like this summers big transfer saga is going to center around Paul Pogba and his potential move to Man United for a world recording breaking fee of about £100 million – though the numbers do fluctuate wildly depending on who you trust on these issues. So for the sake of casual conversation, lets just call it £100 million and be done with it.

The reason it’s shaping up to be a great transfer saga is because it’s just dripping with narrative. There is literally no angle to view this transfer from that doesn’t have some incredible subplot to it, or isn’t filled with dozens of questions. Questions like; is he worth that kind of money? Is it an embarrassing deal for United? Is he a mercenary? Are United abandoning the “United Way” and no longer developing youth? Is United even his preferred destination, etc? Yeah, lots of questions, so lets unpack this whole story and break it down in itty-bitty pieces and answer some of those questions; strap yourselves in folks, this might take a while.

There are two differing narratives on how Pogba left United in the first place. One would tell you that United failed to recognize his talents and he slipped through the net, and the other is that Pogba was a mercenary who left for more money. We can kill two myths with one stone here, because according to both Ferguson and Pogba, he left for playing time. United knew his talents, they wanted to extend his contract, Ferguson just didn’t think he was quite ready for first team action. By his own admittance, Pogba was impatient, and without assurances of playing time, he left for Juventus.

While nobody is going to try and claim it’s a good bit of business, the fact is that it was Ferguson and then Chief Executive David Gill that let him go, a new Chief Executive (Ed Woodward) and 3 managers later, José Mourinho wants to make Pogba the center piece of his midfield. It’s a whole new management regime at United now, and if they have identified Pogba as a top priority, then the fact that someone else sold him a few years ago should have no relevance or bearing on it. It might be unfortunate, but it’s not embarrassing. It would be embarrassing if Ferguson was still the manager and he was the one now looking to sign Pogba for £100 million, but Mourinho shouldn’t be judged, nor restricted by the mistakes of a regime long retired.

The next big question is whether he is even worth the asking price. The simple answer is probably a no, but he isn’t too far off that number. The market has changed. We’re in a market where United could roughly spend about £250 million ever summer and not raise any eyebrows regarding Financial Fair Play. We’re in a market where a club like Watford can turn down £30 million for a player like Troy Deeney. The Premier League is bursting at the seams with money from this summer on, everything is going to go up, and it’s going to go up in a ridiculously steep incline. It can’t be compared with Ronaldo going to Madrid for £80 million in 2009, because everything has inflated drastically in the last 7 years. A 2009 Ronaldo would be £200 million in today’s market. What were once cash strapped clubs can afford to break their transfer records while at the same time turn down huge money for their own coveted stars. David Moyes must think back to his days of counting the pennies at Everton, only to since see them buy the likes of Lukaku, getting linked with players like Juan Mata, all while being able to turn down £40 million for John Stones. The numbers are through the roof.

With that type of market mind, £100 million isn’t that much of a stretch for one of Europe’s brightest young stars. Even if you still don’t think he is quite worth £100 million, he surely must be valued at somewhere in the £70-80 million bracket at least, and if it’s a case that Man United need to over spend by £20 million or so in order to try and get themselves back to where they want to be, having had such a fall from grace over the last 3 years, then so be it. The Glazers being thrifty in the market in Ferguson’s final few years is more than partially to blame for the squad needed a massive over haul in the past few years anyway.

If Pogba isn’t worth that kind of money, then you have to ask yourself, why the likes of Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho are so interested in his services. Why do Real Madrid view him as their next Galactico, and why exactly haven’t Juventus already snapped United’s hand off, if Pogba is worth nowhere near the amount on offer? He might be over priced, but he isn’t ridiculously over priced. Regardless, United need to address their midfield, it’s a critical area for them this summer, and if you were to draw up a list of the top 10 midfielders in Europe at the moment, the list is full of players that are either unattainable, not the right age profile, or not the right type of midfielder. Pogba ticks all the boxes from United’s point of view. While not the polished, complete midfielder just yet, Pogba is only 23 and already in the conversation for the best midfielder in the world, his talent ceiling is potentially huge. For a team like United, looking to get back to the top, a player like Pogba is an absolute no brainer, because getting Pogba ultimately means that one of their rivals doesn’t get Pogba, even if they are paying over the odds by a few million – and lets face it, 20-30 million is a “few million” to a team like United.

There are mixed reports out there contradicting where Pogba’s preferred destination is. Guillem Balague would have you believe its Real Madrid, while Gianluca Di Marzio and L’Equipe will tell you it’s United. While I have nothing to go on other than my gut, I have a feeling Pogba would like to go to United. 99% of the time, I would say that players would prefer Madrid, but in this case, I think Pogba may be an exception. Not too long ago, Pogba gave an interview to Four Four Two magazine and had very warm things to say about United. When asked about his reasons to leave he said; “”He (Ferguson) said ‘your time will come’ but it never did. It didn’t come. But it does not mean I will speak ill of Manchester United. I love the club.” And when asked if it was hard to leave Manchester itself; “It was a very, very difficult moment for me because I was in love with Manchester and I was a Mancunian.”

Pogba has good friends, friends he won trophies with in the United academy now playing in the first team, so settling shouldn’t be an issue. Then there is the José factor; like him of loathe him, Mourinho has pull – players want to play for him. There could also be a sense of unfinished business, or a desire to prove himself at a club he feels he never got the chance to. For everything going wrong at United over the last three years, the Man United of today could look like a very exciting project for a player.

When you step back and look at the transfer from different angles, you can see other reasons why a move could be tempting. Pogba is a global superstar, a poster boy for Adidas, the kind of player who heads up brands and advertising campaigns. And while it’s sad to think of football from a marketing perspective, that’s the world we live in. United are a commercial behemoth, and they can help grow Pogba’s brand better than anyone. At United, Pogba can be the man, and not potentially getting lost in the shuffle behind the likes of Ronaldo and Bale at Madrid. There are a lot of reasons why a move to United may look more favorable than Madrid, and I never thought I would say that.

For any United fans worrying about whether this will signal an end to developing youth, and bring on more of a Galactico approach; United have always spent big money on marquee players, they just managed to keep a healthy balance of home grown stars complimented with the big signings. United have broken records before for Roy Keane, Andy Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Wayne Rooney, Dimitar Berbatov and Angel Di Maria. United spending £100 million on Pogba will have zero impact on the likes of Rashford, Lingard, Fosu-Mensah, Januzaj and Borthwick-Jackson. The things it will have an impact on is stuff more along the lines of how much game time Fellaini gets, or how many times we have to watch Wayne Rooney stink up the game pretending to be a midfielder. It will have an impact on a lot of things, but the emerging young talent that United fans are so proud of isn’t one of them. Even with the likes of Pogba, Zlatan and Mkhitaryan coming into the side, United will still probably have the squad with the most home grown, academy produced players in the league.

The last thing to consider is; United are essentially the opposite of a sugar daddy club. Instead of someone pumping hundreds of millions into the club, United have owners who routinely suck hundreds of millions out of the club instead. There is another big reason why United fans shouldn’t be too concerned with the money being spent; the Glazers. For the last 11 years, the Glazers have sucked about £100 million sterling every single year out of the club to pay their own personal debts. When United spend 100 million on either interest payments, or lining the Glazers pockets, fans of other clubs couldn’t give two shits, but when United spend the same amount of money on a player, everyone is up in arms. If you’re a United fan, then ask yourself, would you rather see that money – and it is an exorbitant amount – sitting in the Glazers bank account or running around on the pitch?

by Andrew Furlong

Twitter: @Andrew_furlong

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Arsenal’s Annual Spring Meltdown – Fact or Fiction?

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We’re in the middle of March, and that can only mean one thing, we’re also in the middle of Arsenal’s annual “season in crisis” patch of form. Knocked out of the FA at the weekend, on the verge of being knocked out of the Champions League at the last 16 stage yet again, and only a faint glimmer of hope remains for them to win the title. It’s just soooo Arsenal that even in a season where Man United, Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool are all well out of a title race, The Gunners are still staring at a probable 3rd place finish.

Even if Arsenal were to win all of their remaining 9 league fixtures, the maximum points total they can reach this season would be 79 points, if they were to win the title with that number, it would be the lowest points total for the Champions in 18 seasons. Arsenal’s last 3 seasons (4th, 4th, 3rd) saw them amass points totals of 73pts, 79pts and 75pts. Even with everything else going on around them this season, they are just being bang average Arsenal, par for the course. And even that is giving them the benefit of the doubt that they can win all their remaining fixtures, something which is hard to imagine them doing when they have only won 3 league games since the turn of the year – against Newcastle, Bournemouth and 10 man Leicester. They’ve won 6 of their last 16 in all competitions; I struggle to seem them winning 9 out of 9.

The cliché that goes with Arsenal is that they always start strong, hopes get raised and then they bottle it in the spring. They’re spineless bottlers, or so they say. “Same old Arsenal, this happens every year with them”. So I thought I’d take a look at the last decade worth of seasons and see just how chronic their issues are.

2006/07

This was the beginning of the trend for Arsenal. Still in with a shout for 4 trophies, on February 20th they were 2nd in the league when the forthcoming weeks saw them get knocked out of the FA Cup by Blackburn, lose a League Cup Final to Chelsea and get knocked out of the Champions League in the last 16 by PSV. In the league, a stretch of games from March 18th – April 9th saw them fail to win any of the 4 games they played, including 3 defeats on the spin to Everton, Liverpool and West Ham, followed by a 0-0 draw with Newcastle.

Final position: 4th

 

2007/08

While 06/07 was the start of the trend, this year is probably the most famous one, and the season most people think of when it comes to Arsenal’s Spring Breakdowns. It’s February, Arsenal are 5 points clear at the top of the table with 12 games remaining, then comes the famous 2-2 with Birmingham City. Eduardo broke his leg (or had it broken), McFadden scored an injury time penalty and Gallas had a temper tantrum of infamous proportions in front of millions of viewers. Starting with that game, Arsenal went on a run where they failed to win in 5 consecutive league games, then lost two crucial games 2-1 to both Chelsea and Man United. Arsenal had taken the lead in both games. During that spell, they were dumped out of the Champions League by Liverpool, 5-3 on aggregate and tossed aside 4-0 by Man United in the FA Cup.

Final position: 3rd

 

2008/09

Even though they were never really in the title race this season, they still kept up their new tradition. Scoring just 1 goal in a winless February (four 0-0 draws and one 1-1) meant that any hope of a late push, or even just finishing higher in the table were put to bed. They did have a good run in the Champions League, before being soundly beaten in the semi finals by Man United.

Final Position: 4th

 

2009/10

“It’s the hope that kills you”. The meltdown happened later than normal this year, maybe even the latest spell of the decade. Arsenal were 2nd in the table on the 27th March, but one win in 6 games (that being a 1-0 home win v Wolves) hit the Arsenal faithful hard. The standout game of that run being when Arsenal were 2-0 up away to relegation threatened Wigan with 10 minutes remaining, and managed to lose the game 3-2.

Final Position: 3rd

 

2010/11

2nd in the league (Jesus, I really could copy and paste some of this stuff) at the end of February, The Gunners were hunting down a quadruple. The first one was all but in the bag; a League Cup Final against an eventually relegated Birmingham City, Arsenal managed to balls it up. That was the 27th of February. The 8th of March saw them exit the Champions League in the last 16 round. 12th of March a Man United team with a midfield of Rafael, Park, O’Shea, Fabio knocked them out of the FA Cup. Their league form from the 5th of March until the end of the season was 2 wins in the final 11 games. They ended up with nothing, and….

Final Position: 4th

 

2011/12

Another season where they weren’t ever really in the title race. This was the season of the Aguero last minute goal, and Arsenal finished 19 points behind City and United. It was also the season they lost Nasri, Fabregas and were humiliated 8-2 at Old Trafford. It was a season with no real cup run either. Early exits in both domestic cups and a last 16 Champions League exit to AC Milan added up to a bit of a nothing season for Arsenal. They did find time for a mini Spring slump though; winning only 3 of their last 8 league games of the season.

Final Position: 3rd

 

2012/13

This is the year that Arsenal bucked the trend. As a “Fuck you” to all the people waiting for a Spring collapse, Arsenal went and got their shit patch out of the way nice and early. They won just 5 of their opening 15 and were midtable heading into December. They got their act together around Christmas and had a strong second half of the season. This was around the time when Arsenal fans kept talking about their form over a calendar year instead of a season like normal people do. If only they could have stuck the second half of this season with the opening half of the next. Another year without a domestic cup run of note, and the also traditional last 16 Champions League exit occurred again.

Final Position: 4th

 

2013/14

You know what, this was the year I thought they had cracked it. They had shown some real mental strength through a tough Christmas spell, and they performed a bit of a mini “Great Escape” in their Champions League group (which had Dortmund and Napoli) when they looked dead and buried at the half way point of the group. Maybe Arsene’s kids had matured into men? They were 1st – yes FIRST – in the Premier League table going into February. However this was the season where Mourinho coined the “Specialist in Failure” nickname for Wenger, as between the 8th of February and the 6th of April they won just 2 out of 9 league games. Including crushing 5-1 and 6-0 defeats to Liverpool and Chelsea respectively.  Despite the heart shown in the group stages, they still went out at the last 16 stage of the Champions League. As a side note, they also failed to beat Moyes’ United in a season when everyone was beating Moyes’ United.

They won the FA Cup. Wenger finally got his hands on some silverware again. To be fair, it should be noted, they showed a lot of bottle in the final; having gone 2-0 down very early to Hull City, they could have just been typically Arsenal for the day, but they rallied and won 3-2.

Final Position: 4th (1st on February 8th and still finished 4th) and the FA Cup.

 

2014/15

Maybe they were getting a bit stronger, but there was no real collapse this year. They were never realistically in the title race either – and you can’t bottle something you’re not in. They did only manage to win 2 of their last 6 league games and had the obligatory last 16 exit from the Champions League, so some things remained normal. They retained the FA Cup, beating Aston Villa in the final.

Final Position: 3rd

 

All in all, it’s not pretty reading if you’re an Arsenal fan. It’s really ugly reading if you’re a season ticket paying Arsenal fan. In the last decade they have had six 4th place finishes and four 3rd places, and you would put your money on them being in one of those positions again this year. Over the last 10 seasons the average points total for the Champions is 87.4 points while Arsenal are averaging just 73 over the same period. A total they are bang on course for again this season. Looks like same old Arsenal to me.

by Andrew Furlong

Twitter: @andrew_furlong

 

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Living in the Past

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Remember David Moyes? Likeable enough chap, he was floundering for a while trying to do a job that he was in over his head with. The fans showed a lot of patience, but they eventually turned when he started spouting off killer sound bytes like how United should aspire to be like City. Fans don’t like that. Not so much the sentiment in itself, but the sub text. It shows weakness, a recalibration of the standards, an attempt to lower expectations by a man who knows he can’t deliver what he was meant to.

Living in the past. That’s where van Gaal thinks Man United fans are if they think that their team should be aiming higher than 4th, or aren’t happy to be in the Europa League, or still lust after trophies. I guess there is a fine line between living in the past, and striving to maintain higher standards, and in some cases, it’s easy to get muddled. I don’t feel that’s the case here. Watching United play these days can age you. It really can, I know I feel exhausted – physically and mentally – after just watching LVG’s philosophy in all its glory. Because of the fact that each game lasts for what seems like forever, the days of a Sir Alex led United seem really far back in the past, but they aren’t really.

If LvG had taken over the job at United three or four managers down the line after Sir Alex had retired, with each passing manager doing a little bit more damage than their predecessor, and van Gaal was charged with trying to rebuild, I could understand the sentiment. But Ferguson retired in May 2013, van Gaal started in July 2014. A year, and one short, failed manager sit in between the Ferguson and van Gaal eras. That’s not enough time to refer to the Ferguson years as some long time ago fairytale.

To accuse anyone else of “living in the past” is the van Gaal equivalent of picking up a massive boulder and throwing it at you from inside his single paned glass house. It’s a really weird, and dangerous line to take for a man who has to constantly remind people about all the achievements on his CV from yesteryear. To me, this is van Gaal following in Moyes’ ill-fated footsteps and attempting to lower the expectations of the media and United fans. He is floundering, his infamous big balls are shriveling up and he knows it.

I know it’s in the past, so why bring it up, but van Gaal was the one who rocked up into his first press conference at United boasted about a title within three years. He bought himself some time by claiming it would take three months for the players to get his methods (so you can write off the first season because of thick players) and then they would be challenging, if not winning a title in the second or third season.  Cause that’s what happened at all this other clubs.*cough*Living in the past*cough*.

Van Gaal has his philosophy, but so do Man United – or at least they used to. Principals, traditions, style, whatever you want to call it, it all basically boils down to the same thing, and football clubs pride themselves on their identities; The United Way, The Liverpool Way and so on. United, the club, have lost sight of that, but the fans haven’t. Every manager that comes into a job will want to put his own stamp on things, but there needs to be a respect to the clubs own philosophy and traditions. These principals have been instilled in the club years before the current manager arrives, and should be in place years after he has vacated the post.

Maybe they were cut too deep by the Moyes fiasco, but the decision makers at United seem to have been willing to park up, or completely abandon their own philosophy in order to allow van Gaal to implement his own. The fans aren’t as willing. Why should everything that has been instilled throughout the clubs history be put on hold for a short term custodian? It’s not just Ferguson, there is Busby too. And even someone like Ron Atkinson, who may not have enjoyed the same success, but he still got what it meant to be a Man United manager and the expectations that come with it – and I’m not talking about silverware.

Van Gaal might like to take passive aggressive digs at the United faithful about living in the past, but the fact is, their past is glorious, and the present is abysmal. People wouldn’t be looking backwards if what van Gaal was delivering was acceptable. I don’t even care about the money spent, the least I expect is some heart. If the players simply aren’t as good as the opposition, that’s one thing, but heart, passion, energy and enthusiasm can go a long way. Instead what we are witnessing at United is the greatest collection of spineless eunuchs I’ve ever seen grace a football pitch. A group of individuals with almost a willingness to accept defeat. Unacceptable.

Living in the past is one of only two options available to Man United fans at the moment. Nobody wants to live in the present if this is what is on offer. United fans have got to the stage now where they want to either live in a van Gaal-less past or day dream about living in a van Gaal-less future.

by Andrew Furlong

Twitter: @andrew_furlong

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John Terry & Chelsea : The problem with being a one man club

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John Terry is looking for a new contract, and Chelsea don’t seem to be in a rush to give him one. So now we’re in the middle of a public negotiation where either party is using the media as a mediator to pass messages back and forth to one another.

It’s all slightly reminiscent of Steven Gerrard and Liverpool just over a year ago, which ultimately led to Gerrard’s exit from the club. It’s a shame when it comes to something like this for players as iconic as Terry and Gerrard.

It’s interesting to chart the careers of players like Terry and Gerrard, from academy products, to humble debutants, to good players, then great players, irreplaceable players, captains, legends, institutions to eventually be club symbols. Now it’s; “Mr Abramovich, John Terry, England’s Brave Lion, is on the phone wondering about a contract extension.” “………ummmmm, tell him I’m not in.”

Roman Abramovich has tried to move Terry on before. He hired AVB with a project in mind of reducing the average squad age, and moving on veterans like Terry, Lampard and Drogba, then again when hiring Rafa Benitez as interim manager, Terry once again found himself out in the cold and people were speculating about his future. It’s like Abromavich has read the hand book, he knows that if a player is over 30 he is probably beyond his peak years and its time to plan ahead, but John Terry keeps being awkward about it and keeps being Chelsea’s best center back.

In some ways, you have to feel for the club, it must be a nightmare situation to deal with when you start trying to plan for the future beyond such a huge character both on the pitch and in the dressing room, a man who has unwavering support from the fans. As much as Chelsea fans love Frank Lampard, or Didier Drogba, their love for John Terry is on a whole new level. He is the embodiment of their club.

Terry has been wondering about his future, and the with the club not returning his calls, Terry has decided to use the ace up his sleeve, which is that unadulterated love the fans have for him, and bring the situation into the public. This way, the fans will know he has no desire to leave, and he is letting the fans know that club is treating a legend in such a disrespectful way.

After the game v United on Sunday, Terry told Geoff Shreeves and anyone watching on Sky Sports, that there is absolutely zero communication between him and the club at the minute. Terry knows that putting it out there will put pressure back onto the club to act. The fans will talk, the media will write, speculation will grow, and a resolution will have to be found.

With the club already looking bad in the eyes of the fans for letting it get to this stage with their Captain, Leader, Legend, they are immediately on the back foot and will probably look to find a positive outcome for all parties, which would probably take the form of a one year extension and the stage will be set for the sequel to play out in a years time.

Last year, it didn’t have quite the happy ending for Steven Gerrard, and he moved on to the MLS, but Gerrard was a player who was clearly declining at a rapid rate, and Liverpool felt it was time to part ways. Terry on the other hand has shown that he is still the best center back at the club, and even if new faces arrive in the summer, he can at the very least still do a job as a squad player for another year, maybe more.

There could be a simple, innocent explanation for all this. Chelsea currently don’t have a manager. Hiddink is only interim. It could be a case that the board want to wait until a new manager is in place before they start renewing people’s contracts, especially those of players in their mid to late 30’s. It could be that if Terry had just been patient, this all could have been resolved without airing any laundry in public, but now we’ll never know.

Terry has occasionally cited the likes of Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes, and wants to emulate their longevity, but as good as both of those players were, they were never “Mr Man United” the way Terry is “Mr Chelsea”. Terry being on the bench or getting subbed off is still a news story, that wasn’t the case for Giggs and Scholes. You get the impression from Terry that he loves the club and always wants to be a part of it, yet would cause a fuss if he wasn’t starting. That’s the conundrum the club have to face going forward.

by Andrew Furlong

Twitter: @andrew_furlong

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Jobs for the boys. Ryan Giggs: Man United manager

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Ryan Giggs wants to be Man United manager, and you can hardly blame him. Despite their recent issues, it’s still one of the biggest jobs in world football. Giggs has been at United for the majority of his life, Old Trafford was his home, with Sir Alex being a father figure to him; and now that the father figure is out of the picture, Giggs wants his inheritance. When the King vacates of the throne, the prince will look to gain control.

On the other side of the coin, Man United seem to want Ryan Giggs to be their manager too. It’s the apparent reason that they are just watching from the sidelines as City and Guardiola bat eyelids at one another, and it’s also the apparent reason that Mourinho is still in the unemployment office, despite van Gaal seemingly begging to be sacked over Christmas. United and Woodward have a long term plan, and that’s getting Giggs into the managerial hot seat, and by God are they going to stick to it, even if the two most successful managers of the last decade are single and ready to mingle.

The idea of Giggs being the Man United manager is a romantic one, and one I can get behind, but only if I follow my heart. What United fan wouldn’t want an ex player, a club legend and iconic figure to lead the club back to glory? That’s what most fans would dream of and that’s why so many teams make romantic, managerial appointments of ex players, clubs legends and iconic figures. It’s just such a shame that so few of them are ever any good. The head says; for every Pep Guardiola success story there are ten Alan Shearer nightmares. Ask Liverpool fans how much good the “this guy understands the club” style appointments can do for a clubs progression.

While Giggs’ playing career was a glittering one, littered with trophies, his post-playing career has been more of a mixed bag (to be generous). Giggs was part of the coaching staff under David Moyes’ failed reign as manager, and he is now assistant manager to van Gaal’s not-yet-failed-but-badly-struggling tenure. He was even caretaker manager for 4 games at the end of Moyes’ season, and in those pressure-less, nothing to play for games, his record stands at 2 wins, 1 loss and 1 draw. It’s not terrible, but it’s not awe-inspiring either.

Giggs is a mild mannered individual, with a pretty meek demeanor whose previous work hints that his management style is of the basic “go out and express yourself”, “we’re Man United” Tim Sherwood-esque motivational speeches. He does however, have a ruthless streak in him, does our Giggsy, which was on display back in December when he slithered his way down to the touchline to play cheerleader for the last 20 minutes in the home defeat to Norwich. A move which a lot of people viewed as a man distancing himself from a struggling manager and regime. Being ruthless is a good trait for a successful manager, so at least that’s something to hang your hat on.

If given the job, maybe Giggs wont have to go it alone – maybe he’ll enlist the back up of the fabled Class of 92. Nicky Butt is already at the club as a youth team coach, and my money would be on Paul Scholes returning the coaching staff should Giggs get the job, that would leave Gary and Phil Neville (cause Beckham isn’t going to be getting involved). Gary Neville, the manager of Valencia, has already gone on record saying that he doesn’t view management as a long-term position for him – which would make you wonder why he took the job in the first place? Maybe he has one eye on being a Director of Football at United in the future? Gary Neville now has experience as a player, a coach with England, a pundit with Sky, a football club owner with Salford City and now manager with Valencia. This is pure speculation on my part, but I do wonder if he is trying to garner real world experience in all facets of a football club with a view to try and take on a Director of Football role somewhere down the line, ideally for him at Man United.

Imagine it, Ryan Giggs as manager, Scholes his assistant, Butt and Phil as first team coaches and Gary up in the DOF’s chair. Romance. The Class of 92 could be Man United’s saviors, or they could be another disastrous wrong turn in United’s attempts to find their way back on track. Either way, the Class of 92’s shadow looms large over United and any potential new manager, with members of the clique ready and willing to chip off in the media at the first sign of trouble. That’s probably not going to stop until they get Giggs in charge, so in a way, United might as well get it over with. Try it, and the experiment might be a resounding success, and if it fails, then it may be the last severance with the past, and the Ferguson era – which could be needed in order to fully embrace the future.

by Andrew Furlong

Twitter: @Andrew_Furlong

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Decision-Making

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Decision-making is a fundamental part of football. On the pitch, good decision-making can separate the great from the good. Every player is capable of making a poor decision here and there, not seeing a pass or selfishly trying to go it alone. At least with players, if they do make a poor decision, they usually have a short-term impact and its something you can move on from and rectify easier. Off the pitch though, decision-making at a board room level, will have a much deeper impact on the club, and one poor decision can take years to correct.

You hire a manager, back him in the transfer market, end up with a squad in the manager’s mold, results don’t go the right way, manger gets sacked, season written off. Now you have to hire a new manager and give him some backing in the transfer market, but he might not want some of the previous managers signings so you end up with an unbalanced squad, and you write off the first few months of his reign because his team needs time to gel. Despite all the talk and promises it never actually clicks together and you sack the manager. Hire a new manager who wants to clear out the deadwood the previous two chumps bought and build a squad from scratch all over again. It’s the “bad decision vicious cycle”.

It comes from poor planning and Man United seem like a club without a plan over the last couple of years. It’s become apparent that the previous plan was “let Sir Alex take care of it”, and since his retirement, it’s been a series of randomly made decisions without any clear thought process or long term strategy. The fact that United haven’t bothered to replace Brian McClair since he retired as Director of the Youth Academy over 6 months ago is an example of the lack of long term planning I’m talking about.

That brings me, in a roundabout way, to José Mourinho. Mourinho has been heavily linked with replacing Louis van Gaal, whose impending departure from Old Trafford seems inevitable at this point. I don’t really want to get into the merits for or against sacking van Gaal, that’s a different topic for a different day; here I want to talk about the hypothetical appoint of Mourinho, and why it just isn’t a good idea.

Supporting your club is meant to be about more than just winning trophies, and staring at the possibility of not winning something for 3 years has made some people think United should sell it’s soul for maybe a title and then back to square one of the rebuilding process in a couple of seasons anyway. Sure, most managers these days are short term appointments, the days of Ferguson and Wenger style reigns are behind us, but some managers will leave a team in a much healthier state when their time is up than others. Mourinho is the latter.

If a club has the luxury of doing so, it should always look to appoint a manager based around their own clubs ethos and traditions. United have made this mistake once already with van Gaal, where the club essentially parked up its own philosophy to accommodate that of the incoming manager, who was only ever going to be there short term to begin with. Mourinho doesn’t fit the bill for United for a number of reasons, mainly the style of football he will employ and the sheer levels of neglect he will show to upcoming academy products. Developing youth is a proud tradition at United, a practice that Mourinho has shown zero interest in over his managerial career. If United fans are disgruntled by their current playing style, Mourinho’s suffocating, strangling brand of football isn’t going to lighten the mood any time soon.

A great football pundit, Simon Winter, wrote an article not too long ago about Mourinho, and in referring to José’s treatment of Juan Mata he said;

“The Spaniard was exceptional for Chelsea for two seasons, but Mourinho wanted rid for what he believed were defensive deficiencies in Mata’s game. His best forward didn’t defend well enough. That’s Mourinho in a nut shell.”

And when referring to Mourinho’s relationship with then PFA Player of the Year Eden Hazard;

“Chelsea fans will pray that the fantastic Eden Hazard keeps his tackles per game stat high enough for Jose’s liking” – and we all know how that one went this season.

Those are just two examples from the last couple of years, where Mourinho has taken an exciting attacking talent, curbed their enthusiasm, and tried to remove their attacking flair. But there is a large section of Man United fans – who are screaming from the rafters for van Gaal to remove the shackles from his attackers – want this guy in as his replacement. It makes no sense to me.

There is also the inescapable fact that Mourinho just isn’t a likeable man. Yes, he’s box office and he is showbiz, but he is also a bully. And not in a footballing term “you got to bully your opponent” good way, a bully in a literal sense. Mourinho is more interested in his own stock and reputation ahead of the club he is managing. Whenever it goes right, it’s all down to him and when it goes wrong, its all down to this sneaky, disloyal, rats you call players. It’s no coincidence that his last two clubs have ended with him claiming to have been betrayed by the dressing room, amid claims of player mutiny and revolt. There will excuses for him, but he is the common denominator. I recently wrote an article on here saying that once the aura and magic wears off Mourinho, the players see through and all they see a pathetic, angry little bully, and it can’t be unseen.

Maybe the panic button getting pressed is down to the rampant speculation that Pep Guardiola has already agreed to manage Man City in the summer. A lot of United fans seem to want Pep as their first choice to replace van Gaal, and missing out on him, would then turn to Mourinho. Which brings me back to panic and a lack of planning. Pep and José are almost polar opposites, so the idea that if you miss out on Plan A, then Plan B is something completely different strikes me as poor planning. Its almost like a military operation having Plan A as “we send in one man, Splinter Cell style, he goes in, does what needs to be done, gets out. No casualties, no fatalities.” And Plan B is “Fuck it, lets just drop the nuke.” Dropping the nuke gets the job done too, but its loud, there is no hiding from it, and in the end you’re left with a radioactive wasteland that nobody can go near for a very long time.

United have been victims of their own poor planning over the last few years. There clearly isn’t much of a plan when you consider they gave David Moyes a 6-year contract because they believed in long term stability, then went the opposite direction by making his replacement a man who already had one eye on retirement. At lot of the current issues at United could be attributed to this lack of planning. I know plans can and will change, but good planning means you can hire a new manager without having to rip everything up and go back to the drawing board. Ed Woodward is on course for a rather unfortunate hat trick of poor decisions should he appoint the self-anointed Special One to the Man United throne, and desperate, panic fuelled decisions like this isn’t the correct long term strategy.

by Andrew Furlong     Twitter: @Andrew_Furlong

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The Break Up – Starring Louis van Gaal and Wayne Rooney

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There seems to be some trouble looming in paradise when it comes to love birds Louis van Gaal and Wayne Rooney. Love is blind and that can be the only explanation for why van Gaal seems oblivious to Rooney’s non-stop dismal performances. Regardless of how bad Rooney may have been, he was unsubbable, undroppable and practically untouchable. Other players would get hauled off, dropped for weeks, or even sold on the back on one bad performance, but despite constantly being the worst player on the pitch (and normally by some distance) Rooney had some kind of force field protecting him from the managers wrath. Until recently.

Back in the summer, United let go of striker after striker, as van Persie, Falcao and Chicharito were all shown the exit door. Van Gaal was talking up Rooney in the press, saying that Wayne was going to grab 20-25 goals this season – something Rooney has shown zero signs of doing for years now – van Gaal was pinning his colors to the Wayne Rooney mast and even at the time, I felt it was a decision that could prove fatal to both Man United’s season and van Gaal’s reign as United boss.

We’ve spent the season so far watching Rooney put in near comically poor performances where he would continuously misplace the simplest 5 yard pass, have the first touch of a pub footballer with a hangover and his general movement resembling that of an unfit Dad doing his best at a father/son sports day. It makes you wonder why van Gaal, a man who decrees that his captain always plays, would put the armband on a player who has a reputation for going through poor patches of form on a relatively regular basis.

The last couple of games has seen Rooney lose a little of that untouchable aura. He was subbed off against Leicester City, and van Gaal has made subtle changes in his view on Man United’s striker options. From predicting a 25 goal haul from Rooney, to suddenly saying that if United had a world class striker they would score more goals. LVG musing about United’s lack of goals and deciding that if he had an Aguero or a Suarez in his team, they would score goals in this side. Publicly pining for that caliber of player indirectly says that he doesn’t think Wayne Rooney is a player of that caliber anymore. Rooney not being as good as Aguero or Suarez is probably not a shock to most people, but for van Gaal to actually publicly admit and acknowledge it, suggests that at the very least a small change in the dynamic of their relationship has occurred.

Previously, van Gaal would routinely defend Rooney’s inclusion in the United first team, by saying that Wayne brings more to the team than goals and performances; he also brings leadership, motivation and general ability to bond the team together. Which makes it very puzzling that Rooney didn’t travel to Germany for United’s most important game of the season so far, against Wolfsburg. Would it not be crucial for such a big dressing room figure, club captain to be there with his teammates on such an important night? I know he is currently injured, but its reportedly only a minor knock, and even Luke Shaw, but a horribly broken leg, has managed to travel with the squad for morale support, so why not the captain? Instead, while the rest of the team were in Germany on Monday evening going through various preparations, Rooney was sitting in the stands at Goodison Park with his son watching Everton play Crystal Palace.

Domestically, in Rooney’s absence, United were held to another Old Trafford 0-0 draw, this time by West Ham. If you only checked the score line you would see the 0-0 and think “same old, same old” and assume it was another dull, insipid game, but in it was actually a marked improvement on the majority of United games this season. There were chances, and more than one of them too. The opposition keeper actual made some saves and United played the game slightly faster than walking pace. They looked more fluid – if still lacking in quality – without their supposed talisman.

It’s not even a tough argument to make anymore that United are probably better off without Rooney at this stage, and we may now be seeing the first steps in the two parties finally parting company. With Rooney playing for Everton in Duncan Ferguson’s testimonial, his more frequent appearances in the crowd at Goodison Park and his social media parading of Kai Rooney decked out in Everton kits, it could be construed that Rooney is testing the waters, and mending bridges ahead of a possible return to his boyhood club; once a blue and all that. And with van Gaal starting to make less than positive noises about Rooney’s position, maybe United are willing to help him return home.

United and Rooney going their separate ways seems best for everyone involved – if you removed the bit about Rooney’s massive wages. A new challenge in a fresh environment could be just the thing that Wazza needs to give him back a bit of a motivation. Getting back to playing at his best is probably a stretch at this stage, but he could at least maybe master the basics again, like not losing possession every time he touches the ball. From United’s point of view, they are in the process of rebuilding right now, and while everyone lauds their defensive solidity, there is a huge issue creating anything up front. Rooney is a massive part of that issue. Breaking up more attacks than opposition defenders, lack of pace and movement and a nonexistent first touch means that Rooney is holding this team back from an offensive point of view.

Maybe Rooney will end up back at Everton in a romantic pit stop before retiring, or maybe he would like the bright lights of the MLS while his name still has some brand value attached to it, but either way, I think any resurgence of form in what’s left of his career, will need to happen away from Old Trafford.

by Andrew Furlong     Twitter @Andrew_Furlong

Andrew Furlong

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