Man Utd fans should be careful what they wish for

Kristian Jack

TSN Soccer Analyst

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In a Nike World Cup commercial filmed last year two teams gather on a local field for a game of football. They agree that to a game of ‘winner stays’ and suddenly each one, as the game goes on, picks a professional to adapt to the scenario they’ve been thrown into.

The two captains square off and reveal themselves as Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar. Two genuine world class stars going head-to-head.

The biggest surprise, however, comes next, less than 40 seconds into the segment, when Ronaldo picks up the ball in his own half and hears the shout ‘out wide’,

The ball is sent to the right and as the young man chases it he shouts ‘Rooney’ and turns into the England man. Dressed all in white, he skips past an opponent on the halfway line, looks up and plays a delightful pass on to the chest of a forward who turns out to be Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Ignore for one moment the madness that is Rooney being picked third in an all-world Nike footballers draft. The real story here was the Manchester United man’s positioning and pass when he picked up the ball. Somewhere in a Nike studio last year, Wayne Rooney played the role of a midfielder.

Soon after he would go to Brazil as neither a midfielder nor a centre-forward. Rooney’s average form had little to do with his positioning on the left just as England’s dismal performances had little to do with Rooney.

Rooney went home early and watched his teammate Robin Van Persie and his future manager Louis Van Gaal finish third in Brazil. When the three finally united in pre-season Van Gaal made Rooney the captain.

“My captain shall always play,” declared Van Gaal in September.

Five months on and the Dutchman has kept his word. Rooney remains one of the first players on his team sheet for every game yet he continues to be placed in a far deeper position than he is used to.

Rooney’s ability to play in midfield has been praised by many who pointed towards his versatility. When Van Gaal insisted on the team playing with a back three the deep role of the Englishman was seen as necessary in order to fit in the likes of Angel Di Maria, Juan Mata, Robin Van Persie and Radamel Falcao.

It was expected that a side blessed with such fantastic players going forward would be able to do some real damage. That has proved not to be the case. Teams have sat deep against United and restricted balls to feet of the front two. Narrow lines of defence have condensed space and opponents have rarely pressed, leaving United’s defenders with an extraordinary amount of time on the ball. Van Gaal’s wish was for the defenders to be gifted enough to make a key pass into the final third but that has also not gone to plan and much of United’s tempo all season has been far too slow.

Results have, of course, been better this season than last but the performances within those results have warranted some serious questions. There are plenty of places to start with the questions for Van Gaal but at the top of most people’s lists this season is the positioning of Rooney.

What was a small snowball has now gathered momentum down the hill and a full-blown avalanche is on its way.

Stoke away, Southampton at home, the FA Cup ties against Yeovil and Cambridge, QPR away and the formation change, Leicester at home, West Ham away and then Burnley at home. Mixed results, many good, some bad and throughout average performances littered with uncharacteristic Manchester United traits.

Fans chanted for a change in system, writers started dropping hints at Rooney’s positioning and then former players like Paul Scholes wanted to know why he wasn’t playing as a striker. Meanwhile, Rooney’s performances have dropped off significantly in 2015 and he was woeful, in particular, in home games against Southampton and Leicester.

Most recently, at home to Burnley, fellow midfielder Daley Blind was forced to leave the field with an injury and Rooney dropped even deeper, into a true number six position. Van Gaal was full of praise after the match for his skipper, saying: “'He showed composure and of course he was also today the Rooney that I want to see, but he has showed that he can play in every position.”

Rooney’s fans, in the press box and in the crowd, had seen enough.

“He’ll be playing goalkeeper next,” they Tweeted and screamed on national radio call-in shows.

One national writer this week continued the hyperbole when he wrote the longer Rooney plays in midfield ‘the greater the risk of disenfranchising the player Van Gaal’s team really should be built around’.

What a staggering statement, that is. The writer also hinted that Rooney’s loyalty to the team maybe tested if this continues but I wouldn’t have thought executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward would lose any sleep over it seeing that Rooney has already handed two transfer requests in during his time at Old Trafford and leveraged those to a point where he now earns more money in a week than any team in the sport would be willing to pay him.

Van Gaal has repeatedly said he needs Rooney in midfield ‘for the balance’ of his team but while he has played there his front men have misfired. Many English writers have been quick to pen the obituary of the RVP-Falcao marriage while offering Rooney up as the solution, but any talk of the two strikers struggling cannot take place without the evidence being examined behind them. The lack of service for the front two has been very poor and Rooney has played a role in that. His passing range can be easy on the eyes, spraying balls to the flanks, but rarely does he thread the ball through to break the lines and, as evident against Leicester, sometimes he gets far too much time on the ball that he often chooses the wrong option simply because the position isn’t challenging enough for him.

Even a stubborn, yet brilliant, football mind like Van Gaal would admit that he needs to get more out of his attack but, surely, it should come of some concern amongst United supporters that if they get their way with Rooney further forward he will then be reliant on service that no longer includes a key part of that, according to Van Gaal, in himself.

They should also look deeper into the reasons why it has taken this long for Rooney to even be considered as a forward. Van Gaal has directed everyone’s attention to the holes in midfield that he wants Rooney to plug and by doing that he has taken the pressure off the holes in Rooney’s game as a forward. There is a reason why Roy Hodgson stopped playing him as a number ten. The jury would present the case of Andrea Pirlo vs England at Euro 2012. There is a reason why Wayne Rooney was not on the field the moment Old Trafford said goodbye to Sir Alex Ferguson, having fallen out with the manager. Why?

“I didn’t feel like I got a consistent run of games up front,’ said Rooney in 2013 about the feud. He added: “I actually felt when I played in midfield I did OK, but I didn’t want to play there.”

He added: ‘Everyone at the club knew that’s where I wanted to play (up front) and that’s why I was disappointed because I got told to play in midfield and I didn’t want to. But I’d always go in and try to help the team, so I think there had to come a point where for my own career I had to be a bit selfish.”

The jury would like to present the case of Man Utd vs Real Madrid in the 2013 Champions League when he was dropped after a poor first leg when he, once again, was not trusted to play in a front two.

"He understood the reasons for not playing him and that was completely tactical. And I think I was right,” said Ferguson at the time adding: “ We had to choke Xabi Alonso's ability to control the game, which Danny (Welbeck) did, and that took away Alonso's control of the game.”

Ferguson and Hodgson realized Rooney was a defensive liability in big matches when asked to play up front. Van Gaal will know all about that history.

This season Rooney has been much quieter. Selfless, some would say. Yet there are different ways to get your message across and his words less than two years ago show he will not be disappointed by the media and fans push behind his potential reinstatement as a forward.

Van Gaal may eventually succumb to the pressure. He did, after all, go out of his way in a bizarre press conference this week to try and get the media on his side in a war of words with Sam Allardyce. Rooney may go on and score some goals and reignite United’s attack against inferior domestic opposition but Van Gaal would be wise to put little stock in such short-term gains.

Despite all of their recent struggles going forward occasionally United do give him a glimpse of what he wants in a team, such as the Van Persie to Di Maria to Falcao goal against Leicester, with breathtaking pace going forward. Quite simply United don’t score goals like that with Rooney in attack.

Van Gaal has been given the task of getting United back to being great again, competing for titles and winning games regularly in the Champions League. They remain some distance away at the moment but it shouldn’t stop him from planning for that and it is understandable why he is so reluctant to go back to something he knows he cannot do once they reach the elite level again.