Rooney : Here take this shirt, I am not a United player anymore?
It was hard to say if this was really a victory for United or a warning of more things to come in the future in-terms of leaky goals. It is not always you get both your first choice and second choice keepers off-form. This FA Cup win against a 10 man Manchester City (3-2) for the Red Devils away was all about the depleted midfield and defence. Though Rooney was starting deep, he looked to be playing more in the forward position or is he finally warming up to his new midfield role?
It is hard to say, when a player plays striker and comes down to help in midfield often, it is a different psychological approach to the game, as he does not have the burden of making midfield his main duty. However when he is asked specifically to play that role (Midfield) he rarely goes up and thus stays in midfield and if he does not adjust he might be in an ineffective position at the time when he should be in attack, psychological implications brings fatigue to the player sometimes.
United seemed to have lost that edge in the striking department when Rooney was asked to get to midfield, but things got complicated in the Blackburn and Newcastle games and even the games earlier when United suffered a injury crisis, as now the edge in midfield is also gone and the supply lines cut off, add the injuries to defence with players like Nemanja Vidic you can see United have a real tough battle in their hands.
With Scholes back i would not be too excited about it, it is good that he is back in the game and he can be a good impact substitute, but when is the last time Sir Alex called a player out of retirement to play for United? Never and that is shall we say...is scary!
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