Wayne Rooney: Playmaker & Poacher

January 25th, 2010 | by: Daryl |

Despite his many many goals for England (25 in 57 appearances so far) I don’t really think of Wayne Rooney as a goalscorer. That sounds insane, I know. But it’s not that I doubt Rooney’s ability to put ball in net, it’s more that he does so much else that I tend to think of him more as a creator or a playmaker, than an out and out goal-getting striker. If you read this blog regularly, you’re probably already bored of me banging on about how important it is for Rooney to play in the hole behind the target man, where he room to make things happen.

But this weekend Roonaldo scored all four as Man Utd beat Hull 4-0 and, as you can see above, all four were pretty much poachers goals. That is, goals based on goalscoring instinct, positioning, well timed runs. That kind of thing. Seems he’s a playmaker and a poacher. The boy can do it all.

All of which underscores just how important Rooney is going to be for us at World Cup 2010. If anything happens to Rooney (metatarsals?) then we can have someone else wear his shirt, but we can’t replace him.

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Ahmad

“But this weekend Roonaldo scored all four as Man Utd beat Hull 4-0 and”….:S
if Rooney is fit for world cup and in this form i think the semis are a no biggy
vinnie

are you nuts? rooney not really a goal scorer? i’m not a fan of rooney but i have to admit he’s the finest striker i’ve seen for england.

the only reason he’s not scoring as much was he tend to play too deep. this boils down to his passion and eagerness to help the team to run the whole pitch. i personally thinks that emotions have definitely not brought the best out of rooney, which also points to his tempers out of this context. he’s been scoring a lot for united since ronaldo’s departure and given the license to stay higher up the field