Nani

amolbhatia100 said:
Things from illogical minds needs to be explained. Because it's illogical.

Anyways, my point was about how these two players firing give us a different dimension in attack. Then you started taking the thread in a different direction talking about 'bottom levels', early season form and other such nonsense including a comparison between the two.

Rooney is more influential but they are influential in different ways. The individual brilliance nani brings when he's on song is something noone else does. Rooney has other qualities which make him hugely influential when in form. The amount of influence each exerts can be debated endlessly but imo thes are the two attackers who give us as an attacking the biggest lift when in form. Hence we need (loosely used) one of them to fire.
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:confused: I never mentioned the phrase "bottom levels" and I've no idea what early season form has to do with anything discussed (other than the fact it's still early on in this season).

This latest tangent started when you said we "need" one of Rooney and Nani to be firing. I disagreed, as I believe we have enough attacking quality to cope when neither of them are firing. I also made the point that an out of form Nani can be actively detrimental to our attacking football, which is not the same thing as us "needing" him to be at his best. Not when we've quality alternatives available.

From there the conversation evolved to a general discussion about whether Rooney or Nani is the more influential player, after cina claimed that Nani might be more influential than Rooney. Hence, a discussion about how influential Rooney's return to form was last season on the team as a whole.

And there I go. Re-hashing the fecking discussion for your benefit. What was that about some people being slow on the uptake?
 
Treble said:
I think the big difference between the first and the second half of last season were the games vs Chelsea. We played some lovely football against Chelsea with Rooney being fantastic in 3 of those games. Apart from those Chelsea games and the first game vs Schalke away, we weren't particularly great and had poor games throughout the second half of the season. With hindsight, we shouldn't have being that surprised that Barcelona completely outplayed us in the final.

WBrom away - Rooney won us the game but we didn't deserve the win and were terrible

Spurs away - solid performance in defence, utterly toothless in attack

Blackpool away - poor performance apart from the last 20 min

Woolves away - poor

Marseille away - average

Liverpool away - poor

Bolton home - unconvincing

Newcastle away - average

Everton home - uninspiring

Arsenal - poor

Blackburn away - poor
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When we put it like that we must have been fecking awful in the first half of the season if we matched that points tally, despite having significantly easier fixtures.

Yet somehow we won the league. Go figure.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
When we put it like that we must have been fecking awful in the first half of the season if we matched that points tally, despite having significantly easier fixtures.

Yet somehow we won the league. Go figure.
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That's a mistaken interpretation. I didn't say that we were poor in the second half of the season. Had I said it, your comment would make sense. I said that we weren't that great apart from those Chelsea games. To play poorly in, say, 1/4 of the games doesn't ammount to playing poorly the whole season. Nearly half of our games were very good/excellent, both before and after Christmas. It's false to suggest that Rooney somehow turned our season and from being relatively solid we became world beaters. Facts suggest otherwise. We regularly had poor games even after Rooney hit a rich vein of form. And those games I cited above confirm it, not the mention the CL final when we were badly exposed.

Rooney is very important for United for a variety of reasons but to think that he is much more important than Nani is seriously delusional.

See above the stats about our defence with and without Vidic. They should indicate to you that Vidic is more important at this moment in time than Rooney. Rooney is a great player but not much more important than the other star players at United. It's annoying to neglect the contributions the other (attacking) players make for United in order to present Rooney as the talisman of the team. Great player indeed but not that great as you seem to think.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
It's "seriously delusional" to think that Rooney is more important to United than Nani? Really?

Out of interest, who do you think Fergie would name as the more important player of the two?
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I wrote "much more important".

Due to his leadership and energy Rooney is the more important player, for now. Probably not as important as Vidic though.

After his brilliant start to the season, I thought that Roony was finally on the way of becoming the player that most United fans were expecting to be, namely as good as some of the all time greats. Frankly, I didn't find the comparisons with Pele ludicrous when Rooney was 18. Unfortunately, not any more. Rooney has everything to be one of the greatest players bar...Nani's skills on the ball. Great player for United though and we should be happy that he plays for United. The same goes for Vidic, Rio, Giggs, Nani...
 
Treble said:
I wrote "much more important".

Due to his leadership and energy Rooney is the more important player, for now. Probably not as important as Vidic though.

After his brilliant start to the season, I thought that Roony was finally on the way of becoming the player that most United fans were expecting to be, namely as good as some of the all time greats. Frankly, I didn't find the comparisons with Pele ludicrous when Rooney was 18. Unfortunately, not any more. Rooney has everything to be one of the greatest players bar...Nani's skills on the ball. Great player for United though and we should be happy that he plays for United. The same goes for Vidic, Rio, Giggs, Nani...
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Can't disagree with this.

As I mentioned earlier, Rooney's consistency is what stops him being up there with Ronaldo and Messi. I still prefer the 18yr old Rooney that went at defenders for fun.
 
datura said:
His consistency of performance is very good though, its his scoring that tends to be inconsistent.
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Agreed. The first half of last season was a real anomaly. Very unusual to see him so out of sorts for so long. Even though he's always had hot and cold streaks in front of goal, he rarely goes long without contributing somehow.

His record speaks for itself. 17 goals and 16 assists last season. 40 and 7 the season before that. 27 and 17 in 08/09 and 18/14 in 07/08. That's an amazingly consistent return for a player in his early 20s. Without even getting into the qualities he brings to the team other than creating/scoring goals.
 
pogue mahone said:
agreed. The first half of last season was a real anomaly. Very unusual to see him so out of sorts for so long. Even though he's always had hot and cold streaks in front of goal, he rarely goes long without contributing somehow.

His record speaks for itself. 17 goals and 16 assists last season. 40 and 7 the season before that. 27 and 17 in 08/09 and 18/14 in 07/08. That's an amazingly consistent return for a player in his early 20s. Without even getting into the qualities he brings to the team other than creating/scoring goals.
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16, 13, 34, 8, 20, 11.
 
Pedantic gimp :)

I took 'em off the ESPN site. Probably includes England goals too.

My point stands, obviously. Getting consistently close to 40 goals/assists season after season is very impressive. All the more so when you think he's been relatively unlucky with injuries.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Worth noting that Rooney got more assists/goals than Nani did last season - when Nani was supposedly flying and Rooney only started getting going in the new year.
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surely not true this one.

Feeky?

I'd also like to see how stat measures up next to games played. And also, how many pens does Rooney have in those stats?
 
Sharky7 said:
surely not true this one.

Feeky?

I'd also like to see how stat measures up next to games played. And also, how many pens does Rooney have in those stats?
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Wayne Rooney Bio, Stats, News - Football / Soccer - - ESPN Soccernet

Nani Bio, Stats, News - Football / Soccer - - ESPN Soccernet

Looking at records for their clubs only, Rooney got 16 goals and 13 assists. Nani got 10 and 15.

Rooney started 40 games. Nani started 43.

I doubt Rooney got much more than 6 pens last season and the fact that he ran Nani so close in assists - despite it being much more difficult to create through the middle - speaks volumes.

Bear in mind this is comparing Nani's best season for the club by far with what many would call Rooney's worst!
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Wayne Rooney Bio, Stats, News - Football / Soccer - - ESPN Soccernet

Nani Bio, Stats, News - Football / Soccer - - ESPN Soccernet

Looking at records for their clubs only, Rooney got 16 goals and 13 assists. Nani got 10 and 15.

Rooney started 40 games. Nani started 43.

I doubt Rooney got much more than 6 pens last season and the fact that he ran Nani so close in assists - despite it being much more difficult to create through the middle - speaks volumes.

Bear in mind this is comparing Nani's best season for the club by far with what many would call Rooney's worst!
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If we're talking the 2010-2011 season Premier League official site has Nani on 18 assists for the PL alone (Official Site of the Premier League | Statistics) and 9 goals (Wayne with 11).

Doesnt really take away from the overall point, especially the last bit.
 
Sharky7 said:
surely not true this one.

Feeky?

I'd also like to see how stat measures up next to games played. And also, how many pens does Rooney have in those stats?
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All comps for United, Nani 30-29 Rooney. (10 goals, 20 assists v 16 goals, 13 assists). 4 penalties for Rooney.
 
The Yanks (and therefore ESPN) don't count non-passing assists, for example parried shots or getting fouled and the free-kick/penalty going straight in.
 
Feeky_Magee said:
All comps for United, Nani 30-29 Rooney. (10 goals, 20 assists v 16 goals, 13 assists). 4 penalties for Rooney.
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As I thought, cheers feeks.

Nani easily outscored Roon in assists. Take away Roon's pens and Nani wasn't far off him with goals either. Impressive considering one plays as a striker.
 
Neither played as a striker last season. Rooneys only really had one season as a striker, in which only Drogba was better(due to Rooney being injured and continuing to play the final month or so), Utd fans should know better about his game.....opposition fans judging him on his goals output for most of his career is annoying enough. Rooney is deeper than Nani a lot of the time.
 
Sharky7 said:
As I thought, cheers feeks.

Nani easily outscored Roon in assists. Take away Roon's pens and Nani wasn't far off him with goals either. Impressive considering one plays as a striker.
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Nani usually plays in a more advanced position than Rooney in the 4-4-2 we play IMO.
 
Sharky7 said:
Nonsense, feeeeeky!

Advanced on the wings matbe, certainly not centrally where a player is more likely to score a goal.
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I think Rooney plays unusually deep for a striker when he's paired with Hernandez, however yeah maybe you're right he's much more likely to score than Nani.
 
KM said:
however yeah maybe you're right he's much more likely to score than Nani.
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That was my only point yeah, Rooney is obviously in a better position to score more goals.

And you're right, when paired with Hernandez he plays much deeper than a regular striker/in the hole player.

Despite all the discussion my stance hasn't changed, these are our 2 most important attacking players, I personally can't choose between them, if just one of them is playing well then we as a team usually tend to play well. (barring Rooney in the CL final of course :))
 
Sharky7 said:
As I thought, cheers feeks.

Nani easily outscored Roon in assists. Take away Roon's pens and Nani wasn't far off him with goals either. Impressive considering one plays as a striker.
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Take the penalties away from Rooney's goals but include Nani's corners in his assists? Yeah, that's fair.

Whichever way you cut it, Nani played more games than Rooney, scored fewer goals and only slightly more assists. Fewer assists if you only count passes which unlock defences and ignore lucky bounces off the keeper or other players converting free-kicks/penalties (did Nani win any penalties last season anyway?). Which makes sense to me. This was all despite playing in a position where his primary task - based on our system of play - is to create goals.

All this in Nani's best season ever (by a huge margin) as compared to a season which most people would say was Rooney's worst. It's really not difficult to see who's the more important/influential player. It ain't Nani.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Whichever way you cut it, Nani played more games than Rooney, scored fewer goals and only slightly more assists
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20 > 13... that aint "slightly".

Oh and fyi, when Rooney plays in the hole behind Hernandez, guess what his primary role is? Yup, same as Nani, to create. Bizarre argument that Pogue.
 
Rooney is quite comfortably our most influential player, no doubt about that. He is our talisman and the one man in attack that'l start almost every game unless injured or in need of a rest.

Nani though, is again quite comfortably our 2nd most influential attacker and quite comfortably the 2nd best attacker too. Again, there's no argument to be had there.

There is no point comparing their goals or assists. One of them is a striker and the other a winger. Nani is among the best at what he does, Rooney likewise.
 
Varun_Utd said:
Rooney is quite comfortably our most influential player, no doubt about that. He is our talisman and the one man in attack that'l start almost every game unless injured or in need of a rest.

Nani though, is again quite comfortably our 2nd most influential attacker and quite comfortably the 2nd best attacker too. Again, there's no argument to be had there.

There is no point comparing their goals or assists. One of them is a striker and the other a winger. Nani is among the best at what he does, Rooney likewise.
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Yeah, I'd say Rooney, vidic and nani are our most important players in different ways. One for overall play, one for defensive solidarity and one for individual brilliance. Who cares what degrees of importance beyond that? I think influence is something its very hard to convince another on because its based on much more than stats. You see nani driving past defences and you think, he's the only who could do that. You see Rooney linking midfield and attack and again you feel, he's the only who could it that well. And then you see vidic dominating his area, and again you feel noone does it better. All bring different things to the table. What a viewer values more is totally dependent on his own take. Some might well value defensive solidarity very greatly. We've looked lost at times without vidic in defence
 
Our best player tonight, imo. Looked determined to get the better of Benfica, and a number of excellent runs into their half.
 
Was annoyed at the end when all our attacks were going down the left while Nani was on the right. Had a great night, link up play was excellent and his decision making was good.
 
Didn't get to watch the match but, early on read comments "it's give it to Nani night" and I was that's great - the more he sees the ball the better.
 
He started off a bit frustrating, looked very dangerous and showed loads of class but made silly mistakes. Got fully into his stride as the game wore on and was overall very effective.

He crossed the ball a lot more than he has done in the last few weeks which was nice to see, I felt that he's been overcomplicating it instead of just shifting it and whipping in a cross.

The run where he took on 4 players was amazing :drool:
 
He was very good tonight, his insane runs and inter play with Berbatov and Evra at times was excellent. You could see after that first incredible run how much confidence it gave him knowing how easily he could get past their players.
 
Did very well. Looked like he was really up for this one; maybe because of his Sporting connections.
Some of his runs were just amazing to watch. The cross for the goal was just sublime.
 
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