Wayne Rooney was stupid... but he's Louis van Gaal's only choice as Manchester United captain 

  • Wayne Rooney is still the right man to captain Manchester United
  • FIFA must hurry up and outlaw third party ownership
  • Football takeovers conducted in daylight rarely reach fruition 
  • Manuel Pellegrini should cherish Joe Hart - not drop him 

The tackle was wild, unnecessary and stupid. But so was the reaction. It often is where Wayne Rooney is concerned. Within seconds of referee Lee Mason producing his red card, Rooney’s status as Manchester United captain was being questioned.

How can Louis Van Gaal stand by him after this, it was asked. How can he lead, for club or country? And few stopped to consider the wider question. Who else could? What other choice is there? Who is Manchester United’s captain, if not Rooney?

Robin van Persie? Only a week ago there was speculation he would not make the team when everybody was fit. Michael Carrick is no longer guaranteed a place, nor Darren Fletcher. The new arrivals need time to become United players, let alone United captains, while nothing in the careers of men like David de Gea or Phil Jones suggests they are ready for responsibility yet.

Wayne Rooney tosses the Manchester United captain's armband to Robin van Persie after his sending off

Wayne Rooney tosses the Manchester United captain's armband to Robin van Persie after his sending off

Rooney was shown the red card by Lee Mason after his cynical foul on Stewart Downing (below)

Rooney was shown the red card by Lee Mason after his cynical foul on Stewart Downing (below)

This leaves Rooney. Number one in a field of one. Van Gaal named him as the sole player in United’s stellar front line guaranteed to start. He couldn’t say that of Van Persie, Radamel Falcao, Juan Mata, even Angel di Maria. Maybe by the end of the season his best XI will emerge, along with a rival for the position, but right now Rooney stands apart and Van Gaal takes the rough with the smooth.

The problem is that when Rooney gets rough, the smoothness in his game is soon forgotten. Like the fact he gave Manchester United the lead after five minutes in high-pressure circumstances on Saturday.

This was a big weekend for United. Conceding four goals unopposed to Leicester City is not a good look on any elite club, and neither is a mid-table position having spent £150m on players, with executives demanding automatic qualification for the Champions League. West Ham United were fresh from putting three past Liverpool, too.

The forward is the only real option as United captain when he is available

The forward is the only real option as United captain when he is available

Rooney scored the vital first goal for United against West Ham, setting them on their way to victory

Rooney scored the vital first goal for United against West Ham, setting them on their way to victory

So Rooney didn’t score just any old goal. He scored a fabulous tension-breaker, on the half-volley from a Rafael cross, straight as an arrow. It was his 176th Premier League goal, overtaking Thierry Henry, placing him behind only Andy Cole and Alan Shearer.

Some of the goals have inspired titles, some have been scored in a floundering team. In disgrace, we hear that Rooney is no role model. Yet his contribution to the team is a constant example. Rooney is one of the few United players who emerges from the David Moyes era in credit, and he hit the ground running for Van Gaal, too, scoring the first goal of the season against Swansea City.

He already has three for United in six appearances. No Diego Costa, then, but United’s entire pattern of play is not dedicated to putting him in on goal, the way Chelsea are built to serve their striker.

It would have been easy for Van Gaal to go with Van Persie, his captain for Holland, but he disappointed him to choose Rooney. So he must have seen a spark, or at least a spark worth preserving. He must have worked out that the captaincy would make Rooney happy, and Manchester United would be better for that.

Darren Fletcher (second left, instructing Daley Blind) is United's vice-captain but isn't a regular in the team

Darren Fletcher (second left, instructing Daley Blind) is United's vice-captain but isn't a regular in the team

David de Gea is a regular in the United team but is not ready for the responsibility of captaincy

David de Gea is a regular in the United team but is not ready for the responsibility of captaincy

Louis van Gaal could've chosen his Holland skipper Van Persie as United skipper but resisted

Louis van Gaal could've chosen his Holland skipper Van Persie as United skipper but resisted

He must have appreciated Sir Alex Ferguson’s observation when he noted that Rooney would often accurately predict Manchester United’s team for the weekend, because he knew the game so well. And he must have concluded, like so many good judges, that Rooney’s occasional explosions — he has been shown a card in his last two games but before that his last booking was February 1, a run of 27 matches for club and country without transgressing — were a trade-off for attributes too numerous to detail.

So yes, Rooney let down his manager, his team and himself on Saturday. He will spend the next month repenting, and will miss significant matches with Everton and Chelsea. Yet Van Gaal, more than anyone, knows his alternatives. There aren’t any. Beyond Rooney, United stare into a leadership void.

 

Why put a slug in charge when FIFA need action?

Precise definitions vary, but the genus Ariolimax, otherwise known as the banana slug, is widely regarded to be the slowest creature on the planet. It has an average speed enabling it to cover a distance of 6.5 inches in two hours.

The Giant Ai, or three-toed sloth, is the slowest among mammals, with a top speed of 0.3 miles per hour. It lacks muscle tissue and only comes down from the treetops to defecate on the forest floor, at intervals of roughly seven days. In this way it has been cited as the inspiration behind Michel Platini’s policy decisions as UEFA president.

Yet stop right there, sloths and molluscs, there’s a new kid in town: a FIFA committee member, moving towards a good deed for football. This organism covers the distance spanning one A4 sheet of paper, in roughly 11 years.

The Carlos Tevez scandal over third-party ownership wreaked havoc in English football in 2007

The Carlos Tevez scandal over third-party ownership wreaked havoc in English football in 2007

Sandro set to slide off the score sheet 

Sandro was back in the Queens Park Rangers team on Saturday, having hurt himself in training sliding to celebrate a goal. It was a freak injury, the sort unlikely to be repeated. Not least because Sandro (above) has scored once since December 2012. 

The regulations outlawing third-party ownership will probably amount to no more than a page — but FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke is already predicting no ban until 2018, more than a decade after the Carlos Tevez scandal wreaked havoc in English football.

As if to underline the urgency, noted man of action Geoff Thompson will head up a working group tasked with overseeing the changes. Thompson was chairman of the Football Association from January 1999 to January 2008. And do you know how many rules outlawing third-party ownership the FA had in that time? None.

We know this because 2007 was the year of the Tevez case and one of the reasons it landed so squarely on the toes of the Premier League was that the FA, under the stewardship of Thompson, had nothing to govern third-party ownership.

Neither did the League, directly, but they did have the foresight to forbid material influence on a player. So West Ham United erred by giving an outside party control over their player. The FA did not even have that loose deterrent, and took several years to catch up.

Geoff Thompson was FA chairman during the Tevez affair and will now head up a FIFA working group on third-party ownership despite doing nothing about it when he was running the English game

Geoff Thompson was FA chairman during the Tevez affair and will now head up a FIFA working group on third-party ownership despite doing nothing about it when he was running the English game

As the Tevez appeals process dragged on, the Premier League amended their rules in time for the 2008-09 season. The FA then sprung into action in summer 2009, more than two years after the first Tevez hearing and 18 months after Thompson had been replaced as chairman.

Yet this is the official FIFA want to head up their own third-party reforms: a man who had nine years to address the issue while occupying the most powerful seat in English football, and did nothing.

FIFA have been bounced into action now only because UEFA were going it alone. Incredibly, neither body have adopted the third-party rules that have existed in English football for five years.

And while the League made their changes inside 12 months, FIFA are estimating it may be 2018 before the process is banned. Even the timescale will not be announced until March 2015.

The three-toed sloth is the slowest mammal on earth - but the chaps at FIFA run him close

The three-toed sloth is the slowest mammal on earth - but the chaps at FIFA run him close

So it is not just that FIFA is a corrupt, discredited organisation. It is inefficient, too.

It commissions investigations and keeps the findings secret, it promises reform, but at banana-slug pace. Far from trying to change or grow, FIFA deserves every discourtesy, every last word of opprobrium directed at it. Only at FIFA could master of mediocrity Thompson find his spiritual home.

Michael Garcia, the lawyer whose report into corruption around World Cup bidding is being suppressed, will have no credibility left if he does not go rogue and publish independently. He should make his findings a cause celebre, like Wikileaks, put it all out on the internet and defy FIFA to do their worst.

Our own FA, and other governing bodies within UEFA, will similarly win no respect if they return to playing FIFA’s game, rather than continuing to question president Sepp Blatter’s right to govern. How can it take another four years to pass a rule that should have been in place a decade ago? Sloths are high-achievers by comparison.

 

And while we’re at it... 

Joe Lewis, the owner of Tottenham Hotspur, is a reclusive figure, but not as hard to get hold of as you might think. If you had a few hundred million going spare and wanted to buy his football club, for instance, chances are he would take the call.

So if the American investment firm Cain Hoy were genuinely interested in purchasing Tottenham, why didn’t they just have that conversation?

The moment news of Cain Hoy’s pursuit was directed to the media and not ENIC, it failed the sniff test. Remember a year or so ago, when a Qatari concern was going to buy Arsenal? What happened to that? It reached the back pages but Stan Kroenke remained strangely untroubled.

Tottenham's rarely seen owner Joe Lewis (left) with chairman Daniel Levy at White Hart Lane in August

Tottenham's rarely seen owner Joe Lewis (left) with chairman Daniel Levy at White Hart Lane in August

Takeovers that are conducted in daylight rarely reach fruition. The very rich do not need to conduct a public bidding war, test the waters, get the fans onside, or try to get the price halved.

When Roman Abramovich came in for Chelsea the first anyone knew of it was when Ken Bates handed over the keys; the same with Sheik Mansour and Manchester City.

The Glazers had been increasing their stock in Manchester United for many years, but the final manoeuvre, purchasing the shares owned by their rivals Cubic Expression, was unexpected. Everyone saw the Glazers as sellers, not buyers.

Cain Hoy, a fledgling business compared to the major players of the investment market, now have pretty much what they wanted from their interest in Tottenham. Profile.

The announcement that they are no longer pursuing a deal was entirely unsurprising. They may come back again, most likely if they need the publicity. For now, all that has emerged from this is that Tottenham do not yet have the finances for their new stadium in place.

This information is of no real help to the club; although that would only matter to a company that was in the buying market.

 

What the hell is Manuel Pellegrini playing at with Joe Hart? He dropped him for no good reason at Hull City on Saturday, and there appears to be little urgency in renewing his contract.

Hart will have a year left come the summer. Yet, as one of the few players at Manchester City that fulfils the homegrown criteria - and a damn good goalkeeper, by far the best from England - he should be both valued and cherished.

VIDEO No surprise at Lampard success - Pellegrini

Joe Hart (right), with Frank Lampard on the Manchester City bench at Hull on Saturday

Joe Hart (right), with Frank Lampard on the Manchester City bench at Hull on Saturday

Hart in practice before the game as his replacement Willy Caballero (left) watches on

Hart in practice before the game as his replacement Willy Caballero (left) watches on

Instead, it seems as if he is taken for granted while Pellegrini fights to keep his overrated ally Willy Caballero happy. Yet what would City do if Hart took against the idea of staying on? They wouldn’t just need to replace a goalkeeper, but another Englishman in the squad.

It would cost a fortune. Hart might struggle to find a club with City’s potential — but he could seemingly locate one where he would be better appreciated with a click of the fingers.

 

It says something about the code of loyalty embedded in successive European Ryder Cup teams that no player has ever truly dished on Nick Faldo. They could have, and very easily.

It does not follow that in a sport driven by individualism, 12 players, plus a captain and a posse of assistants, should be thrown together every two years and all rub along. Sure enough, there are always rumours of rows and disagreements behind the scenes. Two of the men involved in Europe’s Ryder Cup victory this weekend are said to have fallen out so spectacularly at Medinah that they almost came to blows. Nothing has been mentioned since. What goes on tour, stays on tour.

Sergio Garcia was labelled 'useless' by former Europe Ryder Cup captain Sir Nick Faldo

Sergio Garcia was labelled 'useless' by former Europe Ryder Cup captain Sir Nick Faldo

Faldo's captaincy at Valhalla in 2008 might have been the root cause of any weakness, it has been claimed

Faldo's captaincy at Valhalla in 2008 might have been the root cause of any weakness, it has been claimed

So it was a particularly poor effort from Faldo, arguably the worst European captain in recent memory, to describe Sergio Garcia as useless and possessing a poor attitude when he played under him at Valhalla in 2008.

Faldo says he now regrets his choice of words. That is irrelevant. Considering the limitations of his captaincy in public, no doubt his private moments would not bear great scrutiny, either.

It is testament to the Ryder Cup code that none of Faldo’s players has ever been greatly critical of his methods. That may alter now. Graeme McDowell, in defence of Garcia on Friday, made it plain that Faldo’s captaincy might have been the root cause of any weakness. Has Faldo now made it permissible for the truth to be told about Valhalla? If so, he will not emerge well, and bagging Garcia will prove the final act of captain dud.

 

 


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