Does The Captaincy Give Wayne Rooney An Undeserved Starting Place?

Before the Leicester City game, Louis Van Gaal disheartened Juan Mata admirers like myself when he said that he 'wasn't so satisfied with Rooney as a striker and Mata as a midfielder' in reference to the QPR game. This instantaneously made me think of two things, firstly that Van Gaal doesn't see Wayne Rooney's Man United future as a striker and secondly Van Gaal didn't or perhaps doesn't rate Juan Mata as Number 10. This exemplifies that LVG envisages Rooney's best position as a midfielder in that creative number 10 role meaning our Spanish sensation's favoured position will be occupied by a player who's place in the starting XI is definitive. Yes that means Juan Mata would become second choice centre-attacking midfielder warming the bench or that he has to play an unfamiliar role in another position. Not good news for Juan Mata enthusiasts.  The question is, even though it seems an inevitability that Rooney will steal Mata's starting berth, does Rooney deserve to play in that position ahead of Mata?

Firstly I'd like to point out that Wayne Rooney is a surprisingly shrewd man. From a player that tweeted "mine tackle was bad" and utters the words "Yeh, of course" with annoying repetitiveness during TV interviews, you wouldn't guess Wayne Rooney was a smart man. Yet he is deceivingly cunning as he has showed he knows how to manipulate Manchester United to suit his best interests.  

Back in 2010 Rooney asked the club to leave and was seemingly headed for a move to the noisy neighbours for financial incentives and the allure of a big money project but due to Sir Alex's unquenchable determination to win Premier League, he was given increased wages and persuaded to stay. On the back of a 27 goal season in 2011/12, Sir Alex wanted to make a major statement in the transfer window as well as give Wayne Rooney serious competition and did so in the shape of Robin Van Persie. In that 2012/13 season, Rooney only played 22 league games, and only scored 12 goals as he was pushed into a number 10 role that he didn't want to play in. The end of that season in 2013 when asked whether he was becoming a midfielder Rooney categorically said "In the years to come, that might be somewhere I could play, but, right now, I'm definitely a centre-forward" and described it with a role he is "very comfortable with" hence didn't like being pushed deep with the arrival of Van Persie. After flirting with a move away to the likes of Chelsea and PSG, Wayne Rooney was given a £300,000 a week contract and played last season as a conventional striker, as he wished. In fairness to him in a poor season for the club, he did have an impressive season with 17 goals and 10 assists in 27 games playing where he wanted. Nevertheless after wanting to leave the club twice, somewhat paradoxically he has earned himself substantial pay rises making him Manchester United's highest earner.

Fast forward a year, a week ago, he said in an interview quite honestly "I'm happy to play out wide; I can do a job there and I can do a job up front. I'm not the player I was...I feel like I've progressed my game." and "I'm a a cleverer player now and know when to run into the box and when not to." Now he clearly doesn't see himself as an out-an-out striker and hence we can infer that he sees himself as more of a midfield man now. It maybe a pessimistic view, but it appears as soon as Radamel Falcao signed, he's decided he doesn't have the attributes anymore to be a striker and has converted to more of a midfielder. I can't help but feel that having seen his competition for striking positions are Radamel Falcao and Robin Van Persie, two of the best centre-forwards in world football, he has decided that Mata is the easiest player to displace in order to keep his own place in the team.

 It is absolutely astonishing how Wayne Rooney has manipulated the club to his benefit, when he's asked to leave he has seemed to get the pay rises he's craved for and when he's inquired to play in a certain position he gets his demand. I've been a big fan of Rooney over the years, he has been a great servant to the club in terms of the goals and assists he has supplied in his career, but perhaps unfairly he has been treated like aloof royalty. It seems as if this trend is going to continue. Van Gaal has given him the Captain's armband as he has proven to be the hardest worker in training and fits the bill in terms a player who has longevity at the club. Before the Leicester game, Van Gaal has said the only two certainties in his team are the captain and the keeper meaning Wayne Rooney is one undebatable name on the team sheet. However this armband may be a hindrance more than a help to the team's cause because Rooney's guaranteed starting berth will be detrimental to the career of Juan Mata.

People say that Juan Mata is the superior number 10 but stats don't make it that clear cut. In fact the two are very closely matched. In 2011/12, it is unfair to compare Rooney (27 goals and 5 assists) to Mata as one played as a striker and the other as a number 10, but in terms of playmakers, only David Silva got more goals and assists combined (6 goals +17 assists) than Juan Mata in the Premier League (6 goals + 13 assists).

The best season to compare them is 2012/13, this is the season where both the Spaniard and United skipper played in that central attacking midfield role for their respective teams. In that season for Chelsea, Juan Mata scored 12 goals and notched up 12 assists and Wayne Rooney knocked in 12 goals whilst supplying 10 assists. That season, Mata created more clear cut chances (14 to 9) and made more key passes (2.7 to 1.8) but Rooney had a better shot accuracy (40.7% to 34.3%) and a better clear cut chance conversion rate (50% to 33.3%). Rooney has strengths in terms of shooting and finishing that Mata doesn't possess whilst Mata has some creative capabilities that his United counterpart lacks. They balance each other out. 

Their current form makes them equally inseparable. 

In their last 10 Premier League games: 

- Wayne Rooney has scored 8 goals and got 2 assists playing both up front and behind the striker. 
- Juan Mata has scored 8 goals and got 1 assist playing solely in the number 10 position.

If you're being pernickety you could say that Mata's stats read better as he played only as a midfielder whilst Rooney has been played further forward more consistently but I think both sets of stats make for impressive reading. Both players are excellent in the number 10 role so whoever plays there fans should be happy, some people wrongly label Rooney unworthy of playing there after playing poor in his last few games (even though stats suggest otherwise). These players bring almost identical amounts of goals and assists so it's only their style of play which differentiates them. Rooney plays more with power and tries to ping the cross-field passes whilst Mata plays with finesse and caresses the ball with delicate through balls. 


 In an ideal world, Juan Mata and Wayne Rooney would be rotated on form and performance which I feel would be the only fair way to distinguish who deserves to play the following game. Or perhaps even Van Persie can be in the rotation mix and rotating him would allow Rooney to play further forward in some games allowing Mata to slot in the number 10 position on occasions. Unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world and Wayne Rooney has a privileged position as captain so rotation with him and Mata is very unrealistic. The way I see it, Wayne Rooney doesn't deserve to play consistently ahead of Juan Mata... but Juan Mata doesn't deserve to play consistently over Wayne Rooney either. It is a contradictory dilemma that cannot be resolved without some fans being left disappointed either way.

 One thing that is sure is that Wayne Rooney has been given an upper hand in the number 10 position with the captain's armband however I don't think it doesn't gives him an undeserved place in the team because he has proven time and time again, he offers a lot in that centre attacking midfield role. It is only unfair that the captaincy seemingly excludes him from being rotated regardless of whether he performs badly in a game. I just hope Juan Mata doesn't become a castaway like Shinji Kagawa eventually became and plays a pivotal role this season with Van Gaal miraculously finding a solution to this head-scratching predicament.

By Hesham Bilal-Hafiz (@hesham786)

How Will Angel Di Maria Fit In At Manchester United?

Angel has become a Devil and yet the major talking point from fans isn't the fact United are finally about to land a 'marquee name' it's the question on how will Di Maria fit in at Manchester United with the plethora of attacking outlets at United's disposal.

Whether the reason for his departure is because of the arrival of Colombian sensation James Rodriguez’s pushing Di Maria to a bench-warming spot or because of a grudge with President Florentino Pérez, Real Madrid’s loss is without a doubt Man United’s gain. Los Blancos fans clearly think very highly of the Argentine unlike the Real Madrid’s hierarchy, 83.5% of a poll of 16,688 Madridistas were against the deal and thought that their club needed to keep Di Maria in the Spanish AS paper this week. Even though Real Madrid fanatics can be subjective in their praise, it is a clear that Angel Di Maria is valuable asset to a team but the question is whether Di Maria is really someone United need and how he’d fit in the team. 

Red Devil fans being cynical with a new expensive signing is no surprise given the fact that star signings in the past have been bought but haven’t been deployed effectively in the team for their potential to be fulfilled.  A prime example is Juan Sebastian Veron, who was a flop considering the extortionate fee paid in the market at the time, with a paltry return of 17 goals and 2 assists in 82 appearances for the club. Flash-forward a decade or so and players like Kagawa and Mata were bought with fantastic records at previous top clubs yet they were initially played on the wing when they in the past have excelled in the number 10 position and they struggled to adapt to the Manchester United team initially. So the club does notoriously have a reputation for buying players for the sake of appeasing fans with big money moves with disregard to how they’d fit into the United system but this time should be different.


The biggest misconception from many football fans is that Angel Di Maria is an out-an-out winger in the ilk of an Arjen Robben, whilst the Argentine has many similar qualities, he has never played consistently as a winger in a front 3 in his career. I think his swashbuckling style of play which will give him the tag of a ‘winger’ but the common misunderstanding means that many overlook that Di Maria has most impressed when playing tucked in a midfield, into a deeper and more central role often deployed in a midfield 3. At Benfica he played wing-back initially, then developed into a marauding winger and then he was most effective when he was in a midfield diamond opposite the holding midfielder Ramires. The position he thrived in at Real Madrid under Jose Mourinho’s 4-2-3-1 formation was a narrow wide role on either flank to ensure that the likes Cristiano Ronaldo and Mesut Ozil could flourish in their favoured positions. Last season was his best season as a footballer and with the arrival of Gareth Bale, Di Maria’s position was cemented as a left-sided central midfielder in a midfield 3 of Xabi Alonso and Luka Modric. From that deeper position he became a midfield maestro managing to be the main source of ammunition for a deadly attack as he got 17 assists – the top assist-maker in La Liga for the season – and chipped in with 4 goals in 27 league appearances for Los Blancos. He was absolutely critical for Real Madrid in their pursuit for ‘La Decima’ too as he managed to rack up 5 assists and score 3 goals in 9 games whilst being pivotal in the Champions League final winning the Man of the Match award.

Di Maria has been played as a winger, wing-back, central midfielder and as a no. 10 in the space of a few years highlighting that he is an incredibly versatile, team player. His jet-heeled pace coupled with his superb dribbling ability makes him a deadly asset to any team. It’s not just these ‘winger’ attributes that make him just what Man United need, he has the capacity to make killer passes at will, providing much needed dynamism and pace to a lacklustre midfield which has shown in the early games to be painfully slow in their build up. One thing that people don’t appreciate enough from Di Maria is his tireless energy; his work rate is commendable because he is not afraid to do his defensive duties whenever necessary.

 With the nickname El Fideo meaning ‘The Noodle’ due to his slim, gangly physique, he is hardly a player that will fly into tackles like a midfield enforcer of the likes of a Arturo Vidal or a Nigel De Jong but he is one that likes to persistently hassle attackers with his presence, hurrying them into making mistakes; like a bluebottle fly whizzing around constantly annoying people near it. At Real, one minute he was in a ferociously quick attack and then the next minute he was indefatigably tracking back helping his defenders – something that Van Gaal will truly appreciate given the abysmal defensive performances this season thus far.

If Van Gaal persists with the 3-4-1-2, Di Maria could be played in the left central midfield spot, meaning he would be playing alongside Herrera in the middle. Playing them both may work against lesser sides but against the big guns would come unstuck defensively hence would require a genuine holding midfielder instead of one of them to break up play for a perfect balance. If there should be an injury to Van Persie, Falcao or Rooney, or even if he wanted to rest one of his strikers, Di Maria could seamlessly slot in as one of the two forwards in the way that Arjen Robben did for Holland at the World Cup – he has the capacity to emulate Robben’s successful transformation. Louis Van Gaal admitted that he is playing 3-4-1-2 because “It fits in more players” prior to the Sunderland game, hence I believe that Van Gaal is trying to accommodate Van Persie, Rooney and Mata – his 3 most important commodities – to play in their best positions. There are growing impressions that this formation doesn’t play to the strengths of others because for this formation to work effectively it requires 3 centre-backs who are comfortable in possession, can pass and have exquisite spatial awareness but unfortunately I don’t think Manchester United have 3 that tick all the boxes for this demanding role. Now with the addition of powerhouse attacker Radamel Falcao, I think a change of formation is a matter of time.

I believe the acquisition of Di Maria will allow Van Gaal to change his formation single-handedly to one that will be better suited to more of the players at Man United, possibly reverting to a 4-3-3 or a similar formation. We’ve seen at the World Cup that Louis Van Gaal is one of the most tactically flexible managers out there, adjusting his approach dependent on the opposition in front of him, playing 4-3-3, 4-3-1-2, 3-4-3, 3-5-2 and 4-2-3-1 at various stages of the competition hence a tactical change is very much a possibility. Di Maria could prosper playing in the left side of a midfield 3 in the 4-3-3 formation, but the best system in my view would be a 4-3-1-2 which would encompass the majority of the attacking quartet of Mata, Rooney, Van Persie and Falcao brilliantly whilst getting the best out of El Fideo. The lack of quality of United’s centre-backs would become less apparent in a back 4, because they wouldn’t have to spend as much time on the ball meaning it would be a system they’d be most accustomed to and the overall demands of a being in a back 4 is less onerous than the requirements in a back 3.  The conundrum for Louis Van Gaal would be how to incorporate Adnan Januzaj and Juan Mata but if he is having headaches because as he has so many options to use in his team, then it’s a good dilemma to have. Manchester City and Chelsea have incredible squad depth and their bench is full of players that would start in most other teams, the likes of Aguero, Fernandinho, Willian and Felipe Luis were all benchwarmers last week just epitomising how much quality they have throughout the squad. Man United can only dream of a dilemma like this, hence the fact that Red Devil fans are moaning whether Van Gaal can accommodate all his top players in an 11 is a short-sighted approach, as a season progresses, a squad of 20-22 with quality throughout is a recipe for Premier League success. 

Angel Di Maria isn’t an unnecessary panic buy; he’s a buy that will panic Premier League defenders. Only Lionel Messi (57) has more assists than Di Maria (49) in the last four years in La Liga, El Fideo is the 3rd top assist-maker from any European league since 2011 which is amazing considering most have been from midfield rather than as a forward. Di Maria is one of the most versatile attacking players in the world, he will excel in whatever midfield or attacking role he will be given at bringing the excitement back to Man United’s midfield. United fans shouldn’t be concerned where he plays or whether he will fit in because he will thrive on the wings and centrally, they should feel delighted that Angel is now a Devil.

By Hesham Bilal-Hafiz (@hesham786)