“Today Wayne played wherever he wanted to, he was brilliant and controlled midfield. I can’t stop Wayne playing there.” These are not the words not of a pundit reacting to Wayne Rooney’s latest performance in an England shirt, but those of the new Three Lions manager, Sam Allardyce.
When asked about the Manchester United man’s future role in Allardyce’s set-up he also said it’s “not for me to say”. These comments suggest the former Sunderland man is unprepared and that he hasn’t done his homework on his players, but that cannot be further from the truth.
Allardyce is a man who gives great attention to stats and player characteristics, there is no chance he wasn’t ready going into this new role. Evidently, he also knows the best position for every other player in the England squad, so what is the issue with Rooney?
It’s a problem that has rumbled on for large parts of his career and tells a story of a player whose talent has been prodigious yet unfulfilled. Where Rooney should play is a question that will continue to run on until he retires, so here at FootballFanCast we thought we’d throw our hat into the ring too and look at why Rooney should be only playing up top for England – whether that means he’s in the best XI or not.
When the England captain broke onto the scene for Everton, everyone sat up and took notice. Here was a player with the sheer audacity to make a fool of Patrick Vieira and his Arsenal team-mates as he crashed a swirling effort past David Seaman. He soon made a name for himself at EURO 2004, too, and secured a move to Manchester United as he quickly cemented his place for both club and country. He did all of this as a teenager and when you compare him to the players seen as England’s future now – Ross Barkley, Dele Alli, Harry Kane and Marcus Rashford for example – his talent was truly special.
So where did it go wrong? And by wrong, we’re not saying he’s had a bad career, he’s England’s top scorer. He’s going to be Manchester United’s top scorer as well, and he’s won everything there is to win at club level – the only bad thing is that he hasn’t been utilised properly. The problem stopping Rooney from fully reaching his potential is that that the potential was so big in the first place.
The great Johan Cruyff was of the opinion the best players can play anywhere on the pitch and it was on this he based his footballing philosophy. Now, consider the Manchester United man. He can play up front, he can play off the main striker, he can play on the left and on the right of an attacking midfield and of course in the middle as a central attacking midfielder. Then, he showed for United last season he can do a job as a deep lying midfielder, and that threw in more questions – perhaps this is his new role?
It turned out it wasn’t and Rooney took more flak when really we should’ve been looking at why arguably the most talented footballer this country has produced since Paul Gascoigne was being pegged into all kinds of different roles.
The main reason Rooney has been shoehorned here there and everywhere is a combination of his ability to do a job anywhere and his selflessness. Say what you want about him, he’s never going to say ‘no’ to playing somewhere even if it’s not his position, and this has led him to being used all over the place to varying degrees of success when really his best position is at the top of the field. Of course, he can play where he wants, given his talent, but that doesn’t mean he should be allowed to.
One criticism of Rooney is that he wants to come deep and influence the game when he’s not getting the service up top – that is the nature of someone with his ability – but it should be his manager that ensures this doesn’t happen. If you have to force it into him until he gets it then so be it because when Rooney did play up front and stayed there, he was devastating.
In 2009 United saw Cristiano Ronaldo join Real Madrid and attention at the club turned to how they were going to cope with the void of goals he left behind. Rooney went up front as the main man to step in and duly delivered. It was the first time in his career he’d scored over 20 goals in the league in one season as he hit 26 and it looked as though he’d finally found his role, he was an out and out striker and was proving thus. The common phrase in the media is that you need a 25+ goals a season striker to win you trophies and United had had one being played out of position in the seasons previous. He did the same again in 2011/12 after a blip the season prior amid contract negotiations, hitting 27 goals this time, leaving United with a striker who finally looked like he’d found his position… and then they signed Robin Van Persie.
Van Persie, of course, was a good signing but thinking more selfishly it ruined Rooney’s chance to stake his claim as the main striker – the Dutchman was never going to play anywhere else and it was the factor once again, that Rooney is a far better player than most, that saw him drop back into the 10 role. He scored just 12 Premier League goals in the ensuing season.
For those couple of seasons as the main striker though Rooney showed the talent he had. Those seasons were his personal best ones regardless of team achievements and that’s why he should be up top for England.
Allardyce loves stats, you only have to look at Rooney’s to see where he truly belongs. Yes, he can play in midfield but he could probably play as a centre-half if you asked him. Where he truly influences games, though, is as a number 9.
Whether or not this happens for the national team is up for a debate. It’d probably be considered a step backwards, but can a step back to the Rooney that broke 20-goals-a-season or to the one who led the line with Michael Owen at EURO 2004 be a bad thing?
If it is then Rooney should call it quits because it’s getting tiresome watching a player of his talent getting used wrongly simply because he’s versatile.
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