Perspective

[KoemansNumberTens]

Shite, one of the greatest players this country has ever produced ? No, you're spouting pure anti-Rooney bias.

I dont see how he can do much better when he's in such a God-awful team and trying to do the job of two players, and the captain.

yeah he's a bit crap cos he's the victim of his on going brilliance

[GLewis]

Depressing ain't it. Three of the Premier League's top talents, binned off to be replaced by Williams, Rooney and Klaassan. I could cry.

They all wanted to leave, so binned off is wrong. Plus we haven’t signed the Lukaku replacement yet

Underlying issue though yes, in that we’ve not tried to sign similar profile players.

Instead going for (very) cheap younger players and spending the money on proven players who (so far) haven’t settled to produce what you expect.

[KoemansNumberTens]

They all wanted to leave, so binned off is wrong. Plus we haven’t signed the Lukaku replacement yet

Underlying issue though yes, in that we’ve not tried to sign similar profile players.

Instead going for (very) cheap younger players and spending the money on proven players who (so far) haven’t settled to produce what you expect.

I think the real issue with the proven players is even if they do reach the level we'd hoped and expected they are still short of being good enough for what was apparently our ambitions. We bought at best proven not quite good enough

[GLewis]

I think the real issue with the proven players is even if they do reach the level we'd hoped and expected they are still short of being good enough for what was apparently our ambitions. We bought at best proven not quite good enough

Yes if we weren’t moving on.

Although there’d be the synergy argument of having 11 proven PL players being better than 5/6 who drag along the rest etc.

[Lxxx]

They all wanted to leave, so binned off is wrong. Plus we haven’t signed the Lukaku replacement yet

Underlying issue though yes, in that we’ve not tried to sign similar profile players.

Instead going for (very) cheap younger players and spending the money on proven players who (so far) haven’t settled to produce what you expect.

Semantics. We sold two players under contract without already having a replacement lined up of sufficient quality to replace them. On top of that we've decided to replace Barkley with players who wouldn't get in the team ahead of him if he was fit. Poor planning on a number of levels.

[GLewis]

Semantics. We sold two players under contract without already having a replacement lined up of sufficient quality to replace them. On top of that we've decided to replace Barkley with players who wouldn't get in the team ahead of him if he was fit. Poor planning on a number of levels.

Oh yeah, the planning / acting upon has been terrible.

We wouldn’t have sold Stones / Lukaku if they didn’t want to go though.

As always, it’s easier to sell good players than it is to buy them.

[blueToffee]

wrong thread.

[GrantyBoy78]

Huge game against Palace coming up (who, incidentally played really well against West Ham and Spurs). Let’s not kid ourselves, we were pretty awful against Watford but if that result can’t kick-start our season, nothing will.

[everton1952]

Some of the comments about Rooney being shite are too strong. There is certainly something wrong with him. He was terrible against Watford and it is painful to see him struggling. His head knows what to do but the body ain't responding anymore? If that is permanent then we and him made a mistake coming back. Is there a way to play him without exposing his slow reactions? I do not know. He will always be remembered here for his good early days before he swanned off to make his fortune and reputation and a bagful of medals we could never have given him.

[stirlingblue]

I think people are really overstating how poor Rooney has been, to me it's looked clear that he is still a level above what we have in the rest of the team even though he is out of form.

He'll continue to give the ball away in a dangerous position once or twice per game, but he's done that for most of his career and I don't really expect him to change that now.

He's not a winger though, and if we aren't going to play him up top or in an attacking midfield role then we should bench him and use him as an impact player.