Sunday, March 22, 2009

Rooney Shows Us What The Respect Campaign Is All About

I refused to write this post before the Liverpool - Aston Villa match today so as not to tempt the fates, but as I write it is 3-0 Liverpool at halftime. Karma be damned!! (It's now 4-0!!! Now it's 5-0!!)

Yesterday, Wayne Rooney displayed he is world class in the 2-0 loss to Fulham. World class hothead liability. The England striker came on at halftime for Dimitar Berbatov and proved to be a dangerous player--dangerous to ManU's title chances as he was sent off for a petulant second yellow late in the match. It was the table toppers second red in the match and means Rooney, Scholes and Vidic will all miss the next league match and possibly Evra due to yellow card accumulation. Berbatov may also miss the match due to injury.

Rooney acted like a seven year old child throwing a temper tantrum in the closing stages of the Fulham loss. After referee Phil Dowd blew a play dead, Rooney thought it wise to hurl the ball thirty yards directly at the referee. Video of the incident can be seen at 101GreatGoals.

The temerity of Rooney is unbelievable. Rooney was already sitting on a yellow and believed his second was undeserved despite his javelin throw of the ball at the ref. His actions lacked any decency and then piles on top of it with a verbal assault on Dowd. Any protestations the cards were undeserved are meritless and quite obviously given by those with red-tinted glasses.

Hey, you got a spot there.

Rooney topped it all off by with a right cross to the corner flag on his way out.

Eat your heart out Rickey Hatton.

Unfortunately, this is not a new story with Rooney who has shown himself repeatedly incapable of restraining his emotions on the pitch or having any thought about the repercussions of his actions. I like to tease one of my English mates that Rooney is England's Dirk Kuyt because they both are tireless workers on the pitch, running end to end, defending, and blessed with unfortunate looks. Lo and behold Kuyt has 8 goals and 4 assists in the league this season compared to Rooney's 9 goals and 4 assists. Rooney leads in red cards too.

This is really an unfair comparison to Kuyt though because the Dutchman will never hurt you on the pitch with childish antics like Rooney. And, to compare Rooney to a world class striker is utterly ridiculous at this moment. I recently had a large debate about Ibrahimovic and his status as a world class player and my counterpart had him lower than Rooney.

I say bollocks because Ibrahimovic has never been a huge detriment to his club like Shrek. Until Rooney can keep a cool head he will never be a world class player and frankly I don't think this boy-man has ever been a position requiring him to change as everbody has indulged his antics because of his talent and potential. I don't believe he will be able to change now, although I hope he will.

[Photos: The Guardian]

12 comments:

The NY Kid said...

Dammit! Now I have "Hatton Wonderland" stuck in my head.

EbullientFatalist said...

A point made in the liveblog/open thread this morning:

Gazza = Rooney

Dare someone to disagree.

Raatzie said...

Two reds? On United? In one game? That's unpossible!

Rooney was, dare I say,

SUHNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARED.

Magnakai Haaskivi said...

This weekend=fucking awesome.

jjf3 said...

This has nothing to do with the point of this post, but I just got the chance to watch Rovers-Hammers. If Rovers go down this year, yesterday was the reason why...
It was a clear reminder from the footie gods that being better for 86-87 minutes of a 90 minute match do not automatically earn you 3 points. At least 75 minutes of the game were spent in the Hammer's half of the field, and Rovers peppered the WH box with repeated, hell, relentless, forays and shots.
Oh, and West Ham's goal included a clear offsides in the buildup...but, ultimately, Rovers failed to finish many, many chances. Both teams had Keystone Cop defensive moments in front of goal, but none of those resulted in goals. Instead, all but 2 of the legitimate goal-scoring opportunities fell to Blackburn, and we just let them repeatedly go to waste...
Hammers weren't even effective in the counter-attack, which was clearly their plan coming into the match. Rovers just could not close the damn game out - it was right there for them, and we ended up walking away with 1 point, rather than 3. And given the way the bottom half of the table looks, those 2 points might be the difference between spending next year playing ManUre or spending it playing Coventry...
This season has been maddening...

jjf3 said...

Oh, and to the topic at hand:
SAF needs to schedule more "Sesame Street" and "Mr Roger's Neighborhood" video training time for his entire team...

and a random thought - what does it say about English soccer that the two starting CB's on the national team aren't the best CB's on their own teams? I'd rate Carvalho-Vidic over the English pair in a heartbeat...

Precious Roy said...

You can be a worldclass striker and a hot-headed twit at the same time, no?

The Fan's Attic said...

You can, but Rooney is just a hot headed twit. Not a world class striker and I'm afraid he's reached his potential--England's Dirk Kuyt.

Precious Roy said...

He's only 23. There's maybe like 10 strikers in the world I'd take over Rooney.

jjf3 said...

Other thoughts late at night:

1) wow, Toulouse dick-stomped PSG, and if the announcers can be trusted (probably not), they did it with surprisigly Teutonic efficiency - 4 shots on goal, 4 goals...

2) and it could have been 6

3) I wonder if the ManU kiddies will ultimately be the undoing of SAF? Ronaldo's a priss, Rooney's unstable, Vidic seems to be afraid of 'Nando, and now with Berba gone, can Tevez repeat his "dragging the carcass over the line exploits" of 2 years ago??

Umm, that last thought never even crossed my mind 10 days ago...quite the change of perception from the outside...

BackBergtt said...

Vidic is 27.

jjf3 said...

MG:
that's why I shouldn't post that late at night. I know Vidic isn't a youngster, but he seems relatively "new" to the team, which I didn't clarify - should have been "youth and newer players". I suspect he's the next long-term captain at ManUre, but it definitely looks like 'Nando is in his head, fair or not from the outside...