rooney is no genius

http://www.football365.com/john_nich...403700,00.html

It's amazing how many observers of football are also amateur psychologists, especially on the nature of body language. I'm usually quite cynical about such observations but in the case of Wayne Rooney, even the laziest pop psychologist can read him like a book.

Despite coming from a rough and tough background, he's always struck me as a shy kid who is easily embarrassed and covers that up with aggression. It's always been easy to tell when he's getting frustrated and wound up; the angry pink face, the charging into tackles and the frantic running back to retrieve a ball that has bounced off his foot is all a dead giveaway. He isn't and never has been cool. When things go wrong, he tends to look like small boy who isn't getting his way. He's an unlikely megastar.

Our headline this morning asked 'What is wrong with Rooney?' People point to his 'problems' at home as a reason for his awful form. This may or may not be true - some footballers seem to thrive on adversity, others get crushed by it, but the fact many commentators are missing is that these patches of rubbish form are not untypical for Roone,y regardless of what he has or hasn't been doing in hotel rooms.

He has always blown hot and cold. He has always scored in purple patches and then gone through barren spells. He is rarely a seven out of ten player and tends to be either poor or excellent.

But his current form, coming on the back of an awful World Cup, shouldn't really surprise anyone. The reason it still does is because Rooney is painted by all and sundry as the greatest English footballer of his generation and has been since he was 18. This is a title he merits when at the peak of his form, but one which looks frankly ludicrous with every mis-controlled ball and stray pass against Bolton. Yet it is the backdrop to every minute he is on a football pitch.

Rooney can be a force of nature; a powerhouse player with tremendous instinct and touch, but then so have a lot of players in the past who were not marketed as one of the world's best. As it stands in 2010, Rooney is not living up to the billing Brand Rooney has set for him and I suspect this puts as much if not more pressure on his psyche than any amount of domestic dalliances. In one sense, he is being found out. Or at the very least, the marketing hype is being shown as often grossly misplaced.

This isn't to say he isn't a very good footballer, it isn't to say he not blessed with great skill and nor is it to say we will not see him perform well in the future, but Rooney hasn't been sold to us as a very good footballer, but as a footballing God.

In the ad breaks at half-time this weekend, there he is selling us some new EA Sports digital hypnosis, a demi-God at the centre of the football universe. But when the game resumes he seems all too mortal and is hauled off after an inconsequential hour.

Many keep saying that this run of form is down to injury before the World Cup. Maybe it has, but does worrying about an injury really make you lose your basic technique, time and again? Does it stop you finding the correct position or making a short, snappy pass to a team-mate week after week? I don't know, maybe it does.

However, it seems less likely than what I believe is the greater truth, which is that Rooney almost always isn't as good as he has been ramped up to be. And he knows this better than most, which in turn makes him try too hard and go on these spirals of decline before something happens to restore his confidence and form. Living up to your billing must be one hell of a lot of pressure and to repeatedly not be able to even get near to that billing must be embarrassing, humiliating even.

When on form he is at the top of the Premier League tree and a joy to watch, but then so are many players. Peaks of good form do not a world-class player make. Top-class consistency, week in week out, season after season does. Rooney has never done that. Will he ever?

I'm not trying to put him down nor decry his talent. It's the marketing and default viewpoint that he one of the best in the world that I dislike. I love to watch him as much as anyone and I know he played well for most of last season and I have been thrilled by some of his performances over the years, but it's surely time for a reassessment of the default view of The Great Rooney and to question its veracity. Fundamentally Rooney is over-rated because despite sometimes being an exceptionally good footballer, he is spoken of and portrayed as something bigger and better. This is a standard he can rarely live up to.

Not being the bestest ever player ever to walk the earth doesn't make you a bad person or a bad footballer. So what's wrong with Wayne? Not much. This is who he is. His form will return and he will score some great goals and play some great games and when that happens he will once again be hailed as a genius because there are too many people with too much both financially and emotionally invested in him being thought of as such. That doesn't make it true though.

pretty much sums up my views on rooney. a good player, sometimes great player but hyped by english media

Afternoon Marlo

Get back to work, the mitre deltas aren't gonna make themselves.

What a surprise you're agreeing with someone else's opinion rather than forming your own.

So, Rafabio and a £#%&!wit journalist agree.

Well, £#%&! me.

Good to know that piece of shit website from which the article hails is reaching its target audience.

I see that not a lot of people have liked the article.

Originally Posted by rafabio

I see that not a lot of people have liked the article.

The article is load of rubbish. 'Rooney isn't a god. He is mortal'.

Wow. No £#%&!ing shit.

Originally Posted by rafabio

I see that not a lot of people have liked the article.

I see that not a lot of people like you.

a steaming pile of shit > that article > sharath

Upon investigation, the journo in question is a Boro fan.

And Rooney scored 34 goals last season.

MOTWYW.

Originally Posted by Harri Jaffa

Say what you really feel mate

i always do

Originally Posted by waynes ear's

i always do

You're normally so shy and retiring

ABU who sees a Utd player play once every few years doesn't rate him.

Next.

Yoga Bullshit

That abu website is basically for the hard of thinking abu/arsenal support.

Their Mediawatch column's all right. Mainly because it doesn't actually comment on football.

Originally Posted by Fuzzy Dunlop

That abu website is basically for the hard of thinking abu/arsenal support.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--CdA8IhE6Q&

Originally Posted by Sloppy

YouTube - Die hard Arsenal supporter from Bangalore

1-0 to arsenal. he's obviously been following them for a while.

That's a terrible article.

Originally Posted by believe

1-0 to arsenal. he's obviously been following them for a while.

yeah, his love for the BPL dwarfs yours so shut it.