You can't ignore the rest of his game because he chucked in a few assists.

a few assists that created goals that won us games

So are you happy with his overall contribution assists aside?

his touch needs to come back to him a bit but apart from that he is contributing which is all you can ask.

It isn't that obvious (and I hope Jose steps in before it does become obvious) but by losing the ball so often Rooney is also contributing to a fair few counter-attacks for our opponents. That, combined with the way he tends to slow down play these days lessens his overall effectiveness. I don't think he should be dropped on current play. He still has that touch of class and incredible work ethic. Unfortunately, the way the team is set up, the benchees should be Martial and Mata. Martial has not been great and Mata really needs to be playing where Rooney is but that's not going to happen.

We may also have to face facts that Ibra will probably run out of puff sometime in the season.

there you go then.




Id be surprised if he plays many of the league cup or europa cup games and probably the fa cup ones unless we get to the 1/4 finals onwards. He is going to have plenty of rest.

If we do our job and qualify without needing anything from theong trip to the Ukraine, then I can see a very youngish team playing in that, certainly no Ibra or Pogba for example.

Mourinho has stated as much yesterday, in fact he actually said it during the post match interview. Nobody else is leaving (Rojo, Jones etc are staying) but unknown if that applies to Bastian.

In the Europa League there will be a different team the back four likely being Rojo, Jones, Smalling, Darmian with the likes of Carrick, Young, Memphis in midfield. Rashford will get the leading role.

Zlatan is unlikely to be playing any group stage matches and depending who we get in cups unlikely to play until near the end. Thats the depth of the squad and really thr only thing we are missing is a backup goalkeeper if heaven forbid something happens to De Gea.

Interesting quotes from Raiola, regarding Pogba:

“Zinedine Zidane wanted Paul Pogba at Real Madrid, but five or six other clubs were after him too,”

“Manchester United now are stronger thanks to Pogba, but Real Madrid are not.

“I never spoke to Pogba about the transfer market when he was taking part in Euro 2016, then he went on vacation because he was very disappointed by the final.

“So I went to meet him in Miami to get him up to speed. He explained to us what he wanted. Manchester is his home.

“Mourinho already wanted to bring him to Chelsea last summer, but it was not the right time.”

Watching those interviews after he signed , he did look chuffed to bits to be here tbh. Certainly didn't get any of the Di Maria's with him that's for sure.

I do think Jose was a big factor with him giving it the green light though.

I doubt that many clubs were after him, as how many clubs could afford to pay a fee like we did?

Real, PSG, City maybe, not many other teams after that (perhaps one or two Chinese ones, but he was never going over there at this stage of his career).

Barcelona, Paris St-Germain, City, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Zenit Saint Petersburg ...

Who knows.

With respect, could Liverpool, or rather would Liverpool really have paid a similar fee for him?

Like I said, who knows?

I'm sure all those clubs I mentioned could have afforded him, and that is precisely what you were questioning.

Fair enough, it just seemed a rather high number of teams that would have been prepared and able to break the transfer fee record like we did.

I think there were quite a few clubs in for him but he wanted to return to Utd and we blew the rest out financially .

I guess that clubs could have been interested initially, but once they found out the sort of prices required to sign him, that is where their interest could have ended.

Seriously, who knows?
5 or 6 clubs could have easily put that sort of money on the table.
He presumably made his feelings known that he wanted to return to Utd, deal done.

It's all speculative.

I agree it is all speculative, it was only just a case of trying to work out if there would have actually been that many clubs really competing for his signature, as it did come across as a choice between us and Real, but others could have initially been interested before dropping out.

Considering we had no chance of signing him and it was arrogant to say that we did, I reckon we've done pretty well there.

His agent says there were 5 or 6 clubs interested in signing him.

So that means there were 5 or 6 clubs interested in signing him.

Do we need to pointlessly speculate further? You would argue a black crow was white. He's with us now - that's what matters.

what about a slight shade of grey?

That would show a degree of bias though.

So do we think the FA will charge Aguero or will they turn a blind eye as its not Costa or Fellaini?

They definitely should charge him, and he should play no part in our match, or City's two games after that, but I just can't see them doing so.

I would love to be proven wrong though, as justice does need to be served.