Jose Mourinho has disclosed that he dropped Wayne Rooney because he wanted to inject more pace into the attack. Manchester United gave one of their best performances of the season so far as they convincingly defeated Premier League holders Leicester City 4-1 at Old Trafford this game week.
Mourinho’s gamble to drop Rooney was widely supported by the fan base and the other “Einsteins” of football. Fortunately, the gamble paid off as United dominated the first half and took an unassailable lead of 4-0 over the visitors.
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The Portuguese mastermind reflected that they needed quicker players around his first-choice forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He was sympathetic towards his skipper but the way Jesse Lingard, Juan Mata and Marcus Rashford tore Leicester up might keep Rooney out of the line-up for a while.
“When our main striker is Zlatan, we need fast people surrounding him,” said Mourinho.
“If he (Rooney) is on the pitch or at home, he is my captain. But we thought against a team like Leicester, the best solution for us was to play with the two fast kids and Mata in a position where he can interact with them. It did well for us.”
The manager, who had suffered back to back defeats in the Premier League, lauded his young players after the cynical performance and also praised Zlatan’s contribution in the game.
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“It was a good performance, the intensity of our pressure, our counter-attacks, the way we reached when we lost the ball. The young kids were fast and pressing and attacking spaces. Zlatan played very well in organisation of the attack.”
The 30-year-old England captain has been heavily criticised for his poor performances especially in the League Cup fixture against Northampton. He started well, reducing the gap on Sir Bobby Charlton’s all-time goal-scoring record for the Red Devils, and providing two assists. However, his performances had gone down since the Manchester derby.
United legend Gary Neville has reason to believe that the United forward has to accept a reduced role in the side as he said, “His form hasn't been good and the fact he has been left out is the right decision. Rooney can have the same end to his career as Ryan Giggs or Paul Scholes. He has to get used to that and accept it.”
