Once a Blue, Always a Blue!
Former Manchester United star Wayne Rooney believes Juventus should have a strong chance of winning the Champions League this term, now that Cristiano Ronaldo has joined them. The Portuguese superstar made the shock move to the Bianconeri from Real Madrid last month and there has since been plenty of talk of Juventus’ European prospects.
The continental body for football in Europe, UEFA, is reportedly planning video access for medical staff so they could review potential concussions. This is part of the post Champions League blues that has continued even as the World Cup draws nigh.
The new system being proposed would allow medical staff on the sidelines review potential concussions, which is similar to the Head Injury Assessment in the Rugby Union. The Premier League has been tackling the issue of concussion over the years. They became the first league in 2016 to allow tablets access so staff could review potentially disturbing incidents. UEFA is now towing that path.
The updated UEFA guidelines in 2014 allows a game to be stopped for up to three minutes so medical staff could do a head injury assessment and decide if a player can continue. Head injury experts have been pursuing for more attention to head injuries. The Medical team that assessed Karius post Champions League final said it was possible that the collision with Ramos affected Karius. There have been continued reactions with the way the game ended, with discussions about the mistakes still on.
Meanwhile Ramos, who is twice the villain now as he was accused to have intentionally dislocated the shoulder of Mohammed Salah or at least seeking to intentionally hurt him, and making Karius concussed, has responded to the claims. The Spain captain said the claims were outlandish.
“I see the play well, he grabs my arm first and I fell to the other side, the injury happened to the other arm and they said that I gave him a judo hold. After the goalkeeper said that I dazed him with a clash. I am only missing Firmino saying that he got a cold because a drop of my sweat landed on him.”
Firmino responded from a pre-World Cup training camp in London, labeling Ramos as “an idiot” for such claims. Others have also waded in like Chelsea and Belgium keeper Thibaut Courtoiswho said he doubts the concussion stories as it seemed Liverpool were making excuses for the defeat. He explained that within the space that Karius made the mistakes, he also made two amazing saves.
For now Liverpool have responded by adding players and trying to increase their squad depth ahead of the new season as they continue the search for a title under Jurgen Kloop.
Some people might have started counting Wayne Rooney as veteran now, but, the Red Devils skipper proved in the game against the Queens Park Rangers yesterday that he is still quicker than many of the youngsters in the team.
Rooney was, in fact, the quickest man on the park for United that day. His speed was recorded about 20.3 miles per hour on one occasion.
Some of the other Manchester United players including their new signing Angel Di Maria also crossed that 20-mile mark, but, none of them was as fast as Rooney according to the speed-gun.
Di Maria, one of the club’s expensive buys, has been bought specifically because of his speed and he did a fairly good job playing in his first home game, but, he remained a touch behind Rooney speed wise.
Manchester United has paid as much as 60 million Pounds for Di Maria and he has shown in his first couple of games that he is a player worth that many bucks. It’s still too early though to pass a judgement on him, but, he has impressed people with the looks of him. He is a tremendously skilled player who can rip through opposition defences in top form.
As far as Rooney is concerned, he looked in great touch too against QPR. He was one of the scorers in the game for the hosts and with that goal; he got to the third position in the list of the highest goal scorers in the Premier League. He is currently levelled with Thierry Henry with 175 strikes.
Out of those 175 goals of Rooney, 160 have come for Manchester United, while, 15 came for his previous club Everton.
Rooney has more than 350 premier league appearances to his name.
The new boss of Manchester United, Louis Van Gaal, will take charge from tomorrow and he will have to make a big call straightaway. He will have to select one out of the Red Devils’ two biggest players i.e. Wayne Rooney and Robin Van Persie for the captaincy post which has become vacant after the departure of Nemanja Vidic.
Rooney is understood to be willing for the armband and rightly so. For more than a decade now, he has been a great servant for the club winning matches in all competitions.
But, most of the people would admit that after the arrival of Van Persie, Rooney’s stardom at Old Trafford has reduced just a little bit. He has started playing wide now or in the midfield in an attacking role with the role of the central striker now being played by RVP.
In the last season, there were even talks of Rooney’s transfer. He eventually didn’t go though and agreed to sign the contract extension, but, it’s clear that his association with the club now is not as strong as it was a few years ago.
As far as Van Persie is concerned, he has earned the respect of almost everybody at United in just two years. Apart from being a highly skilled player, he is a fantastic leader and he showed that in the recently played World Cup where he was the captain of the Netherlands national side. He is believed to be someone who is very good at keeping the team together.
It’s all up to Van Gaal now. Whether he gives Rooney the armband for all his contributions for Man U over the years or he decides to back Van Persie to do the job, it would be very interesting to see.
Wayne Rooney is famously regarded as one of the best things to come out of the Everton youth academy, but Everton manager Roberto Martinez claims that midfielder Ross Barkley could be an even better prospect. Barkley is currently playing for Everton after having come through the ranks at the club. However, his impressive run of form in the last few years and the talent that he has shown during this period has propelled him into being one of the top transfer targets for big clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City. Manchester United are also thought to be interested in him.
Rooney came through the Everton Academy and went on to complete a £ 30 million transfer to Manchester United in 2004. He is regarded as one of the best England players out there. Martinez has seen Barkley from close quarters since the start of the season and he says that the midfielder has been demonstrating much better potential than Rooney did at a similar age. Despite the transfer interest, Barkley has been consistently stating that he wants to remain at Everton for a considerable amount of time.
Everton are close to completing a miracle push for the top four places and Champions League football next season could make Barkley commit to a new contract.
“Ross is the best young England talent I have ever seen, for sure. For me, yes [better than Rooney],” said Martinez when asked about his star midfielder. Everton’s Leon Osman was also of the same opinion and he said that Barkley could be a star at the World Cup 2014. “Should Ross get picked for the World Cup? If he gets the call, I’m absolutely convinced he will do very well. If he has the belief behind him, who knows what could happen on the bigger stage?” said Osman.
Rooney got ready to play on the field when a fan of an opposite team threw coins at him the day after when Manchester United paid Wayne Rooney the huge amount of money in Britain.
He took the coin from the grass handed it over to referee and started his game. Rooney’s response was exact and established. He scored the goal later in the game and brought United home with 2-0 at London Crystal palace.
Eric Cantona initiated a kick onto the face of a fan who had criticized him, about 19 years ago. Coins thrown in anger and disrespect can be blind. The Crystal palace is not a palace infact it’s a stadium with its front row almost touching the distance of the players in the ground.
Rooney instead of showing anger or aggression challenged his own reputation and got into the match when he scored the second consecutively goal in Saturdays match. The second kick was the best one in the match. After six minutes Rooney crowned it. Juan Mata and Evra set up the sharp attack down the left, before Rooney permitted a wing with a line of four defenders receding in front of him.
Balancing the ball like a ballerina on his left foot he allowed the ball to come across his body before relating a touch with his right foot that fired it forcefully and accurately into the area of the net. This kind of ability made Rooney value his wages. It is not a skill to be taught. It is natural that comes out with technique and exceptional character. Very few players can do the same. Rooney after the match said on television that I was trying to let my football do the talking.
The real and ongoing question surrounding Rooney have been about his prolonged discussion before he signed a new agreement for United this Friday that binds him until 2019.
The new Man U manager David Moyes definitely had experienced a fumbling start after stepping on Sir Fergusson’s shoes but it might have been further worsening for the new chief had he been unable to restore Rooney for the club. The Scot who took up as the boss for the esteemed squad this May feels that their stellar striker is almost like a legend now and is one of the most sought-after names among the club rivals like Chelsea.
It was due to the English forward chiefly that Manchester United was actually able to brush-aside the West Ham relegation-threatened United with a 3-1 score last weekend- Rooney had always been a one of the most coveted names among England’s Premier League contenders such as Chelsea before close of transfer window this September as he admitted his frustrations regarding playing in midfield under the former Man U boss Sir Ferguson the previous season.
However, Moyes was ultimately successful is restricting Chelsea’s advances towards Rooney whose fantastic form off late has been of tremendous significance for the club, especially in the asbsence of many senior players such as Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand, Michael Carrick and Robin Persie.
“What do I see especially in Rooney? Well I find leadership in him more than just anything. I see someone who is eager to take up the entire responsibility for his team”, Moyes was all praise for Wayne whom he considers as being on the verge of being a nothing but “a legend”.
“I find someone who cares about his own as well as the team’s overall performance. He is approaching the age now where he can be the boy no more. He’s one among the seniors in the Man U and is almost on his way to stand up as a great legend very soon at the club”, continued a seemingly impressed Moyes.
Arsenal have made a very impressive start of season by winning 8 of their 10 matches of the Premier League so far it’s been a shocker to many people seeing them higher than Chelsea, Manchester City and United.
This however fails to impress Wayne Rooney who said that Arsenal have been in many similar situations previously but when the pressure begins to be placed they will break down.
“We’ll have to wait and see where Arsenal is in March,” he said. “We’ve seen before that they’ve been in the top two until February or March and then faded away. They are doing brilliantly at the minute, so it’s down to them to try and stay there and us to catch them.”
Manchester United lost 3 of their initial 6 opening games of the season which have left them getting further and further behind top positions of the Premier League as they now are sitting in a disappointing 8th place with 17 points it seems like David Moyes has not made the best of starts with the English titans.
Although it does not concern Rooney as he believes they will be able to get back on top and defend their title trophy.
“We have to go into it with confidence and a belief this is when we can edge closer to them and bring us back into the mix of being at the top of the league.”
A busy schedule is ahead of Manchester United as they are playing in the Capital One Cup, Champions League and the Premier League but Rooney is certain that despite the number of tournaments currently involved in, it won’t distract or harm them in any way as they want to win the biggest one of them all, the Champions League.
Wigan chairman Dave Whelan has slammed with Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney for focusing on other matters than winning football matches. Rooney is very keen on moving away from Manchester United with Chelsea keen to secure his services. Whelan, though, argues that the player lost his passion for winning football matches last season itself. Rooney scored only 16 goals last season in a season in which he was overshadowed by Robin van Persie. The presence of the Dutchman is thought to be the key reason behind Rooney wanting to move away from Old Trafford.
However, it was only one season ago that Rooney finished the campaign with 34 goals in all competitions and he was spoken of as one of the best players in the world. Even last season, his goal return is extremely healthy because he managed 16 goals by largely being a substitute and also playing out of position. Whelan and his team Wigan will be taking on Manchester United in the Community Shield in what will be their second appearance at the new Wembley stadium in their history. Rooney will be once again missing from the Manchester United team as he has done for the last few friendly matches.
Wigan, though, will be looking to achieve magic once again by winning the Community shield.
“If we are being perfectly honest, and we’ve all watched him, he went off last season. He lost that fantastic sparkle. He went off the boil. It seemed to me his will to win had gone. He was being lazy. He wasn’t grafting. He wasn’t running around. And whether it was because the other lad (Robin van Persie) was getting the limelight and scoring the goals, I don’t know. What does he want? He is at one of the finest clubs in the world,” said Whelan.
The manager of Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson, has made it clear that the club is not going to sell Wayne Rooney.
The ongoing season hasn’t been that prolific for Rooney. Especially, in the big matches, he has failed to deliver and that led to the speculations that Alex Ferguson might think of putting him on sale.
Also, there were reports that the French club Paris Saint-Germain had approached Rooney’s agent.
But, the United manager yesterday denied the reports that Rooney would leave the club.
Ferguson said, “We are not going to sell any of our big players during the summer transfer window. The speculations about Rooney leaving the club are not true at all. He has been doing a brilliant job for us since the last 10 years and he definitely has future at the club.”
Manchester United is said to be linked with quite a few strikers recently including Robert Lewandowski of Borussia Dortmund.
When asked about that, Ferguson said, “We are not going to buy too many players during the summer transfer window because I think our squad is quite balanced. Almost, 80% of the first team members are in their 20s and they are capable of doing the job for the club for many years. So, we are looking for only a few players.”
“I am hoping that the players whom we buy will possess the skills that we require. We are not as rich as Manchester City or Chelsea, so, we will have to be a bit more strategic in the transfer market.”
Manchester United might also have to look for a goalkeeper in the transfer marker if they decide to sell their second choice goalkeeper Anders Lindegaard. Lindegaard still has three years left in his contract, but, there have been reports that he is the one whom United is planning to put on sale this summer.