Equals Bobby charltons record and on course to be the record England and Man Utd scorer - a remarkable achievement.

He's a weird one, though. Only one World Cup goal

Where does he rank in the grand scheme of things? Incredible achievements but you still get the feeling he's underachieved?!

I suppose you have to think how much worse England would be/have been without him.

Had a few brilliant seasons and a lot of good ones.

Too prone to scoring in patches and then going off the boil for equal amounts of time.

Probably folk expected him to be better than he was because of how good he was as a teenager but I think it was more a case of him just peaking very early compared to most players. Probably not helped by the way he carries on over the summer with regard to his fitness either.

I think the one world cup goal kinda sums up the problem.

Rooney is extremely talented and produces season in season out, but if you wanted to call him a great where do you hang your hat? What springs to mind as his greatest moment? You can pick any number of moments for players available to us from the modern age. Maradona or Baggio or Messi. He's not got the safety net of saying he was from a diddy nation like Zlatan or Best or Sheva either. Even then they dragged their country up by the bootstraps on occasions. All i've got for rooney is an overhead kick in a derby and his goal against arsenal as a lad. I'm sure there's more, but I can't imagine there's enough to build a dynasty off of.

Perhaps it's yet to come, but it doesn't strike you as likely. There's clearly a lot to him, but i could write a list as long as my arm of players i'd have in front of him from my two decades of watching football. He's a great footballer, but there's a fuck ton of them when you look at it.

For a while he looked to be on level with Messi and Ronaldo. Maybe he did peak too early.

Still had an amazing career to be fair.

(09-05-2015, 10:00 PM)2NaFish Wrote: What springs to mind as his greatest moment?

Changing the world for bald #ballers?

(09-05-2015, 10:10 PM)Alan Partridge Wrote: Changing the world for bald #ballers?

We've still got a long way to go. #baldlivesmatter

He won't go down in history as an "all-time great", but he's been an excellent player on a very consistent basis. Man Utd and England have been very lucky to have him.

Dat volley vs Newcastle.

(09-05-2015, 10:00 PM)2NaFish Wrote: I think the one world cup goal kinda sums up the problem.

Rooney is extremely talented and produces season in season out, but if you wanted to call him a great where do you hang your hat? What springs to mind as his greatest moment? You can pick any number of moments for players available to us from the modern age. Maradona or Baggio or Messi. He's not got the safety net of saying he was from a diddy nation like Zlatan or Best or Sheva either. Even then they dragged their country up by the bootstraps on occasions. All i've got for rooney is an overhead kick in a derby and his goal against arsenal as a lad. I'm sure there's more, but I can't imagine there's enough to build a dynasty off of.

Perhaps it's yet to come, but it doesn't strike you as likely. There's clearly a lot to him, but i could write a list as long as my arm of players i'd have in front of him from my two decades of watching football. He's a great footballer, but there's a fuck ton of them when you look at it.

I said the exact same thing about Lampard

Rooney gets a lot of hassle. Wonder if Bobby Charlton got such a hard time on his way to records.

Guy hasn't even always played games as a striker. He'll beat the records, not sure he'll smash them as I can't see him playing up front the entirety of his remaining career and might have to settle for adding a few a year from midfield.

Lampards career has a different trajectory to Rooney's though. Rooney was the great white hope, lampard looked like he should've been in Blue.

The guy hasn't looked after himself, which means that the second the standard of his performances dips, his professionalism is always called into question. I don't think there's too much doubt that he will decline quicker than a player like Lampard (maybe that's already begun).

Has he though? Or is the fact he looks more like a fat cunt than a footballer not just lead to it?

I'm sure I've read he's consistently one of the "fittest" EPL players when tested.

(09-06-2015, 10:31 AM)Francis Begbie Wrote: The guy hasn't looked after himself, which means that the second the standard of his performances dips, his professionalism is always called into question. I don't think there's too much doubt that he will decline quicker than a player like Lampard (maybe that's already begun).

Not looking after himself through his 20's and constantly coming back to pre season (plus injuries) overweight has definitely caught up with him.   Last weekend against Swansea he had over a yard start on 31 year old Ashley Williams (not a player noted for his pace) and Williams just ate up the ground on him.

Know I keep telling this story but it does show the difference between the two....

After one of the Euro's in the 2000's, the United players involved were given 3 weeks off.   Ronaldo had used the 3 weeks with his personal training team and bulked up (In Neville's words - came back a man) whilst Rooney was fined for being half a stone overweight.   It may seem trivial, no doubt Rooney lost the weight no problem but it does give you a view in to the mindset that Ronney had for a big chunk of his career.  

He is obviously still a very talented player who will adjust his game (and indeed already has) but his decline started a while back.  I'm not so sure how long he will be able to play at the very top level.   Its all very well saying he can drop back but you still need to get about the pitch.

He's turned up for pre-season training half a stone overweight in the past, by his own admission. Bet Ronaldo has never done that. Quite obviously not looked after himself the way he should, comparatively with his peers.

First I've heard of that GA. But makes sense.

I honestly struggle to give Rooney much credit for his goalscoring record at International level. Never done it at at a tournament, and most of his goals come against absolute diddies in qualifying

Cheers for that GA. I knew I wasn't slavering shit there For once

Was watching a pre-season match the other week - think it was Spurs and Madrid - and the commentator was criticising Spurs for not playing enough friendlies. The analyst (can't mind who it was, but a current manager) was saying that pre-season is a completely different ballpark these days. It's all about tactics, shape and making money, because players at the top level simply don't come back from close season needing fitness anymore.

In the build up to their game yesterday they quoted SAF as saying Rooney was better if he kept playing, and two weeks off before a tournament didn't suit him, it left the impression that this was because his fitness just dropped off as he sat about eating crisps all day.

Could you imagine Ronaldo or Messi doing that.

Cheese and onion

“The night before games I'll have chicken, pasta, fish: all the normal stuff you would expect us to eat. If it's an early kick-off, you try and stock up the night before as much as you can, because you obviously can't eat too much in the morning. I'll then have Coco Pops and a banana as a pre-match meal and then when we get to the stadium, there are cereal bars in the dressing room and energy gels which you can take if you feel you need them.”


http://www.fourfourtwo.com/performance/t...reparation

Coco Pops