Wayne Rooney has taken on Roy Keane’s role of chastising under-performers — but nobody will complain if he keeps delivering.
There are not too many footballers these days, in an era when they are trained to see nothing and say even less, who would emerge from an away win in the bear pit of San Siro to complain that some teammates were “not doing their jobs”.
A few years ago it would have been regarded as impudence, but Rooney has a new seniority in Manchester United’s dressing room these days and the man Corriere dello Sport acclaimed as “the English phenomenon” could not be accused of anything other than daring to call it how it was.
His teammates, one suspects, will not mind when Rooney is winning games for them, just as they used to put up with Keane’s black moods because they knew what he brought to the team and that, more often than not, his assessment of their shortcomings was justified.
Not that Rooney’s complaints were delivered with the whiplash of Keane’s tongue, but there were times in Tuesday’s 3-2 defeat of Milan in the Champions League when his temper glands were pricked sufficiently for a switch to flick in his head, and not just because of Nani’s ability to exasperate on the right wing.
The most volcanic explosion followed an over-hit pass from Darren Fletcher and, when it comes to players not doing their jobs, there were four or five others, including the newly appointed captain of the England national team, who might have felt compelled to raise an apologetic arm during a first half that had Sir Alex Ferguson blowing out his cheeks and talking of “oh God, a catalogue of mistakes”.
Stretch of form
There is a danger of being over-critical when, ultimately, United have ensured they will go into the return leg on March 10 in a position of considerable strength and, in the process, have established a Champions League record of 16 unbeaten away games.
It is a run that stretches back nearly three years and takes in Roma (twice), Barcelona, Arsenal and Internazionale, as well as foreign excursions against the champions of France, Germany and Portugal. United have scored 25 in that time and conceded only seven and it is peculiar that their intrepid travels have not attracted more acclaim.
They also have a striker who is fast becoming the irresistible choice as the player of the year and who now has 25 goals for the season, having finally curtailed his natural instinct to roam around the pitch looking for the ball.
“I’m getting inside the box a lot more and that’s helping me score goals,” Rooney said. “I’m anticipating balls into the box. That’s the main thing I’ve been working on.”
He had little appetite for elaborating on his criticisms of the team but he did disclose that he had felt it necessary to remonstrate with the players he held culpable at the half-time interval of a game dominated by himself, decorated by Ronaldinho but also memorable for the sight of Ferguson hopping about on the touchline, throwing his arms about as though being attacked by an invisible swarm of bees. The subject of his ire? That was Jonny Evans, shortly after offering Klaas Jan Huntelaar a chance to make it 2-0 with a misplaced pass.
“Concentration” is Ferguson’s key word in these fixtures but Evans, at 22, can still be raw — a fine centre-half, yes, but no Nemanja Vidic. Rio Ferdinand, too, does not look quite right after several months of injury issues and it is in defence, the bedrock of United’s success last season, that there are legitimate concerns. Ferdinand is 31 and the fear among United’s medical staff is that his back problems will recur at some stage, which effectively puts him in danger of being officially recognised as a player on the wane.
Back to his old ways
Elsewhere, Nani appears to have quickly reverted to type, having duped some observers recently into thinking he could be more beguiling than bewildering. Ferguson rates him as the best crosser of the ball at Old Trafford but his delivery is too erratic and it brings to mind Cristiano Ronaldo’s early performances for the club, when players such as Gary Neville and Ruud van Nistelrooy would regularly be seen dragging their fingers down their face in frustration. The difference is that Nani, unlike Ronaldo, does not show any sustained improvement.
As for the man of the moment, Rooney can take his place at football’s top table with Lionel Messi, Kaka, Ronaldo et al. He got his team out of a hole in Milan, which is always a sign of a great striker, and United supporters must dread to think what could happen if he were injured. —