Former Manchester United all-time top goalscorer Wayne Rooney has cautioned Erik ten Hag about playing Cristiano Ronaldo against Liverpool on Monday evening.<\/p>\n
The former United forward has urged the Red Devils boss to get energy on the pitch, and this effectively translates to benching the 36-year-old’s former team-mate for the game.<\/p>\n
Via The Times, Rooney said: ‘I wouldn\u2019t play Cristiano Ronaldo, and I wouldn\u2019t play Marcus Rashford.<\/p>\n
‘If I was in Ten Hag\u2019s position my main concern would be getting energy on the pitch, and United\u2019s failure to recruit a number nine means they relied on Ronaldo against Brentford, even though he hadn\u2019t trained a lot with the team.<\/p>\n
‘He looked like he needs time to get match fit. ten Hag needs energy from his side and that may mean dropping Ronaldo.’<\/p>\n
Rooney also described United’s 4-0 drubbing against Brentford last weekend as ‘hard to watch’, saying he has ‘never seen Manchester United so lacking in those basic qualities’.<\/p>\n
‘Football has developed tactically and improved technically during my time in the game, but the basics don\u2019t change,’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘If you don\u2019t run, if you don\u2019t put in the effort, you can lose to any team. I have never seen Manchester United so lacking in those basic qualities. Their hammering by Brentford was hard to watch.<\/p>\n
‘If that had happened to any of the United teams I played for, I think fans, journalists and every other team in the country would have been shocked, but people weren\u2019t with this side. The most worrying thing is that neither the result nor performance surprised me.’<\/p>\n
Rooney has a sterling record, having won five Premier League titles as a player for United, the last coming in 2013, but unfortunately United haven’t won even a single championship since then and are currently scraping the bottom of the barrel in the Premier League.<\/p>\n
A slew of managers have come and gone since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement, with Erik ten Hag the latest in a long list of wannabes trying to restore the glories of yesteryears to the once highly-revered club.<\/p>\n
‘Erik ten Hag was right to call players out and speak about hunger, and it was fair enough for him to get them in for extra training, where he asked them to run the same distance that Brentford outran them by,’ said Rooney.<\/p>\n
‘ten Hag will have done a lot of soul-searching this week and will be making a lot of demands to get a reaction out of his players, I\u2019m sure.<\/p>\n
‘But with this group, this has been happening for so long that changing their ways is going to take something drastic. They\u2019re emotionless \u2014 there is no character, no heart in the team.<\/p>\n
‘I\u2019m not talking about every player. Harry Maguire will always try, Fred will always try and Scott McTominay may not be Paul Scholes or Michael Carrick but he will always go out and show some balls. Those three have been trying to lift the group, but it comes down to individuals to take responsibility.<\/p>\n
‘As for Marcus, I think he needs to do a lot of soul-searching and figure out what he wants, for his own good, before anything else. Because watching him is a real concern, he looks like he wants to be anywhere but on a football pitch.<\/p>\n
‘Watching United, I see players throwing their arms up and shouting at team-mates but I don\u2019t see them talking, or looking at themselves before blaming others. I see them making eye-catching runs to close down the goalkeeper but not 50-yard runs back to stop an attack.’<\/p>\n
‘I see them going up to the crowd after the game apologising or coming out on social media with all the guff: \u201cWe go again.\u201d The fans see through that. My message would be: stop apologising, just get on with your job \u2014 and work. That\u2019s all the fans want. They want to see them taking responsibility in the 90 minutes.’<\/p>\n
United were again forced to eat humble pie in their first two games of the season against Brighton and Brentford and are up again on Monday in a crunch game against long-term rivals and last season’s runners-up, Liverpool.<\/p>\n
Suffice it to say that United were humiliated 5-0 in the same fixture last season, which had to be rearranged due to incendiary protests against the club’s owners, the Glazer family, who had long been used as the punching bag by the legions of irate United fans. Unsurprisingly, another protest is being planned for tomorrow’s game, but Rooney has warned that United need to be perky and on the alert or risk suffering another humiliating debacle.<\/p>\n
‘We should remember that this is only the start of Ten Hag\u2019s reign, that he\u2019ll need time and that he\u2019ll have identified a number of issues to address when the time is right. He clearly wants to see the players he inherited and give them a chance.<\/p>\n
‘But he also needs to do something quickly and the first priority is, against Liverpool, to just compete and have a go. Do that and the fans will accept it, even if United get beaten. Play like they did against Brentford, and United will suffer an even worse result than their 5-0 defeat by Liverpool last season.<\/p>\n
‘I don\u2019t expect that to happen, by the way \u2014 I can\u2019t see United winning, but I believe there\u2019ll be a reaction and they\u2019ll lose by the odd goal, or even snatch a draw.’<\/p>\n
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