Wayne Rooney - The Great Debate

Warning, it is a long read, but a good one in my humble unbiased opinion

Good morning ladies and gentlepeoples! I hope you had lovely weekends, I think I had too much to eat yesterday and feel bloated. I thought it would be good to have a discussion about our Wayne to break the monotony of the Shaw, Fellaini and Moyes discussions on this board. You will also be pleased to know I will no longer call Luke Shaw the second coming of Wayne Bridge.

Back to the article and I think it is important to state the following for clarity; in my personal opinion, I think Wayne Rooney as a person is a piece of shít who is not worthy of Utd or the support and adulation he receives from the fans. On the pitch he is a quality football player and is statistically one of the very best. However, like TRC says, “stats are like bikini’s; they suggest a lot but reveal very little."

Now this article is not about Rooney’s contract or his shameful attempts at fleecing the club or questioning the ambition of the club and the quality of his team mates but it is about the boy himself, aptly tagged the white Pele.
Rooney was a phenomenal talent when he made his premier league debut and I like many others thought we had acquired a player that was going to take on the best in the world. I remember the debates on the old 606 where people said Rooney was superior to Ronaldo and a lot preferred him as well.

We are almost a decade since those days and I like many people feel cheated as Rooney did not develop into the player we all thought he would. Yes there are factors to consider like the way he was used but the question is why was his development sacrificed at the expense of others? Yes he had talent but was he as hungry as Ronaldo for instance to constantly improve himself.

I look at Rooney now and he is a shadow of that 16 year old that burst onto the scene and I cannot help but be disappointed with what he has turned out to be. Every year he has been at Utd he has had purple patches then a niggly injury then a barren patch and then a goal here and there, almost like clockwork. Recently other aspects of his game are beginning to suffer, his first touch is now Welbeckesque, his passing ability has become Andersonesque and he does not affect games as much as he used to and I firmly believe like Paul Scholes said, his best days are behind him.

Please I do not want to hear how he appeared fitter than ever this season; he has been injured for large parts of it. His tracking back is a positive but is also a negative as when we get possession he is not in the right part of the pitch for it to be exploited.

So a few questions to ponder;

1) Has Wayne Rooney developed into the player you thought he would be?
2) Do you believe he will ever recapture his early promise?
3) Are you of the opinion his best days are behind him?
4) Do you think he is preventing Utd from evolving as a football team?
5) Do you believe he has become predictable?
6) In your view, is he the heartbeat of Utd?
7) Is he un-droppable?
8) Do you believe he has a future role to play at Utd?
9) What do you believe that role is and how best do you think he should be utilised? Finally
10) Do you believe his abilities are fairly evaluated in the media as they focus on his positives but ignore the many negatives?

Your thoughts and comments will be appreciated