well.. sticky.. they're a team.. technically..

To those of you who think Ronaldo is carrying the team, look at it this way: Do you see him dropping back to get the ball? Marking like Ferdinand or Neville or a host of other players? Not that I want to take anything anyway from the boy, I reckon he is probably the best attacking player in the world right now. He's pure magic with the ball at his feet, he scores loads of goals, he gets the glory.

Now, just for a second, ignore the media hype and look at what Rooney does, for argument's sake. He's a forward. He hasn't been scoring many goals lately, so what gives?

Rather than being a selfish prat and standing in one spot, Rooney covers the length of the field like you would have expected Patrick Vieira to not so many moons ago.

He marks up, tackles well, creates space for other attacking players and bags the occasional goal when the chance arises. Just because he isn't scoring goals doesn't mean Rooney is past it. Far from it.

Do you see Torres, Adebayor, Drogba or any other forward you care to name making goal-saving tackles? I think not.

Next time you judge a player, look at everything they do on the pitch, not just the stats at the end of the game.

Hence Fergie has kept Rooney in his first 11.

Dirk Kuyt does most of that. What a player!


Err, yes. He's always back for corners. He's one of Chelsea best players in the air, and is very good defensively. Alan Hansen described as one of the best strikers at defending he has ever seen.

Rooney does get back a lot, but that not his job. Having him back there often doesn't help the team, and can cost the team sometimes defensively, as well as obviously going forward. Remember the Portsmouth game? Where should Rooney have been? And where was he? And who led to the penalty? Yep - the one and only Rooney_79586.shtml'>Wayne Rooney. He shouldn't have been defending put he was, and then he makes a has of it by running towards Kranjar when Anderson was on him, which left Baros COMPLETELY unmarked in the box with no one near. The got the penalty, scored, you lost.

Oh and what about when Super Wayne was defending for England in the Russia game? Shocking peic of defending in the box to give away the penalty. Nice work son.

Drogba is much better defensively and does more. He wins the ball in the air and knocks it on, brings it down and holds it up, brings other players into play, defends, runs, passes, as MOST importantly for a striker, scores - A LOT.

But why bring him into it. We're talking completely differently classes here. It's not fair on Wayne.

Without Ronaldo we are a good team and we will be a good team. He is scoring goals because he is at right place at right time.

Rooney is much more important than Ronaldo. We have faced all defeats when Rooney wasnt available. Rooney is a constant threat and Ronaldo takes advantage of it and scores goal and even ManUcho will do the same thing when he will play for United.

Not quite laddy.

Forgotten the Portsmouth game already?

Rooney played that one...unfortunately for Man Utd, because he led to the penalty.


You can't really say who's te most important though, because Ronaldo hasn't been unavailable for longer than a few games in years. When i was suspended for 3 games though, you really struggled.

NO WE DIDN'T!

I've told you numerous times now when you've spouted that crap that you're talking out of your arse. Stop using it and actually research stuff you're coming out with.

We won 2 and lost 1 without him (the match at City we should have actually won). The two games at the beginning HE PLAYED, we drew.

VDS

Neville Rio Vidic Evra

Hargreaves

Nani Scholes Giggs
Rooney Tevez


This team would win the league IMO.With Ronaldo United are clearly the best team in the country.Head and shoulders the best.Without him they'd only win it by about 3 points.

You did struggle.

You scraped 1-0 wins from what i remember. Didn't you have to rely on a Saha header late on to win one of them? And wasn't the other one a Vidic header also quite late in the game?

Obviously it's difficult remembering exactly who scored and how the game panned out as it was early in the season.

First two games we were rubbish against Reading and Pompey, Ronaldo played. Next game without Ronaldo we lost to a good City side away which we really should have won and then we went on to win the next two without him.

He came back against Everton, was the worst player on the pitch and Vidic won the game with a late header. The next game he played against Chelsea he was nowhere again and even though Chelsea had 10 men he did nothing. In fact he didn't score his first goal until the end of September when Quedrue gift wrapped it from him.

I think this proves conclusively that we did not "really struggle" without him and really the team was just crap at the beginning of the season.

Furthermore, if you did want to put United's poor start down to missing a player.... It was Rooney who got injured on the opening day of the season and missed a month, who we really missed at the beginning of the campaign.

So essentially without Ronaldo you lost 1-0 and then scraped two 1-0 wins.

Hardly banging 'em in. And we all know the only player that has bee banging 'em in for Man U this season is United.

probably because he has had the most shots in the Premiership, takes all the penalties, all the free kicks and United play too Ronaldo.

Rigarding his free kicks, they might look quality, but how many has he actually scored? I am pretty sure Jimmy Bullard has a better free kick ratio than him since his return from long term injury. He is not very succesful, just has loads of attempts with it.

No, you said the reason United got off to a slow start was because Ronaldo was suspended. I've shown you why that isn't the case, it's as simple as that. If you want to keep using that crap that you've just made up without actually knowing anything about it then go ahead but it just goes to show how you come about your "knowledge".

i think these sort of questions are a bit silly really ....you just dont know how a team would be if a certain player was not there ..

Take Arsenal ...a lot of people said without Thierry Henry we would collapse and have no chance of the title or Champions League ...would struggle even to finish fourth .. well we didnt and have donw better without him you could say .

With Ronaldo you can count the goals he has scored and say Man Utd would be 8 pts worse off if he were not there ...but you just dont know who would have replaced him and if they would have got the goals or if even Rooney or Giggs would have scored the goals for Man Utd .

Its just all theory and guesswork ....does not mean anything really .

there's always another one to take the place.. no worries..

it's too early to say.. conn.. after this wednesday.. for cl..

as for the title.. i dunno.. i heard there's an inside crack in your team.. is it?..
hope they work it out and get back in track.. because....







don't wanna let people think other teams beat you due to there's a personal problem..

Spot on Conner.
If Ronaldo wasnt there, then we would have someone else taking the freekicks for a start - and my guess would be that they would do a better job. Yes he has scored a couple, but a majority of his freekicks fail to clear the wall.

Also if he wasn't in the team, then we would be playing a totally different style game. At the moment, our playing style suits Ronaldo, and gets the best out of him - and that has to be credited to Fergie and Carlos Queiroz.

Yes you can say who's more important,and that is Rooney_79586.shtml'>Wayne Rooney and heres why.
Ronaldo will be effective against smaller clubs and should be used that for the most part.The main reason i would use Ronaldo in games is primarily for his free kick because he seems to be more consistent than other man U players.If i had too choose between Ronaldo and Nani,i would choose Nani,because he seems more of a team player and the more effective dribbler.Rooney is far more intelligent than Ronaldo and is more unpredictable.For all his talent Ronaldo is predictable , is quickness is his biggest asset but i think teams will adjust to that next season.

The Pompy game? We had all the possession, all the chances (though we couldn't convert them) and proceeded to dominate the game until that penalty.

And regarding that penalty, one stuff-up doth not a loser make. You seem to be able to point out the rare occasions on which Rooney does make a hash of it, just like every other player does once in a while, but not the sheer brilliance that he is still capable of executing.

Yeah i know, the fact is, we don't really know how much Man Utd would miss Ronaldo, because he hasn't been out for a long period of time.

It's surprising he hasn't broken a leg yet. When he does, we will find out exactly how important to Man Utd he is.

I think over a long period of time, say 3 or 4 months, Man Utd would drop a lot more points than with him. Well that obvious, but i think the same can be said about Ferdinand, Vidic, Rooney, Evra etc. As good as they are though, i think they can all be adequately replaced, or even replaced by better players. Whereas that can be said about Ronaldo.





We haven't seen much of that brilliance though. The sheer brilliance you're talking about has very rarely been seen this season. The moments of magic, the wonder goals etc. He's capable of doing that though, a few seasons ago he certainly showed that.