The Warm-Up: Wayne Rooney's mad as hell, and Pep Guardiola's banned list
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Updated 05/10/2016 at 07:15 GMT
Wayne Rooney used his England press conference to accuse you, dear reader, of failing to let him evolve into a midfielder. So that's you told.
Wayne Rooney at an England press conference
Image credit: Reuters
WEDNESDAY'S BIG STORIES
Wayne Rooney isn't happy with you
Some time last decade, Wayne Rooney was driving, late at night, through deserted Cheshire lanes. He came across an abandoned van that had spilled its load across the road. He looked closer and found a stash of photographs. Football managers - every last one of them - in compromising situations. He scooped up two big handfuls and continued along his way. Nobody would cross him again.
Right now, that feels to the Warm-Up like the most plausible explanation for the enduring influence of Wayne Rooney.
Rob Smyth made a typically excellent analysis of the situation back when Sam Allardyce was still England manager. Since then, a third England boss has made Rooney captain, and now this.
A player clashing with Jose Mourinho? Anyone else, and we could be fairly certain it would pan out with an unceremonious booting out of Old Trafford.
Yet with Rooney it's a genuine question, such is the man's baffling hold over managers.
He said at an England press conference:
I have heard a lot of people talking about transition – well, let me do it. If that is what’s going to happen, let me do that. I feel I am not being given a chance, if that is the way I want to go in my career, to expand it. I am not being given that chance to go from (attack) to (midfield).
There's nothing wrong, per se, with Rooney's desire to play in midfield - although his discontent seems a bit off, considering he has done nothing else but play in midfield this season, even when selected in other positions.
Rooney did insist he was prepared to follow orders, even if he made that sound a little churlish: "At the minute I’m happy playing where my managers want me to play."
But if he and his boss disagree over his role, he either needs to swallow his pride and play where he's told or take his fading talents elsewhere.
England player realises just what an absolute joke the team has become
While the England captain droned on about getting "slaughtered" and "battered" by the media, someone obviously failed to hand Danny Rose the memo explaining that it is never, ever the players' fault.
The Spurs full-back is new enough to the England setup to fall under the misapprehension that players have a duty to perform well, and so his quotes on Roy Hodgson and English football's laughing-stock status make interesting reading.
We all saw the distress in Roy’s face at the time, so it wasn’t a nice experience and it made us feel guilty, as we should have been because we didn’t beat Iceland. There’s only so much stick a manager can take and there has to be a point where the players look at themselves and say: ‘This is not good enough.’ With Sam, it came from nowhere. I don’t want to say it’s a mess, but it’s not nice for our game. I saw Alan Shearer say English football has become a laughing stock and, while it’s hard to say, I agree a bit: with a manager losing his job after one game. It’s not good in any sense.
You'll never get anywhere with that sense of perspective, young man.
Pep's banned list
And on a quiet news day, the revelation that Pep Guardiola has banned WiFi from the Manchester City dressing room makes several back pages.
Here's a look at what else Pep has outlawed at City.
IN OTHER NEWS
The actual state of 2016, eh?
DIRTY LAUNDRY
Yesterday, Nick Miller went disastrously off-message with his claim that not only was the Checkatrade Trophy the only football on this week, but it should be avoided at all costs.
Obviously he's wrong to suggest anyone should eschew football to spend an evening chatting to loved ones, taking in some culture or eating a delicious meal. Bang wrong.
Worse, though, this man of supposedly impeccable feminist credentials ignored the Women's U17 World Cup, which is live on Eurosport this week.
If you haven't been watching, you've missed this extraordinary finish:
- Cameroon score sensational 93rd-minute equaliser against Venezuela.
- Venezuela, with no time left, decide just to shoot straight from the kick-off...
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Goal from half-way line with final kick of game secures win for Venezuela
RETRO CORNER
When a colleague emails the Warm-Up writing team with a YouTube link and the email subject "One for retro corner?" all you can do is capitalise before anyone else gets their grubby mitts on it.
So here, for your enjoyment, is Borussia Moenchengladbach's Hans-Gunter Bruns with the greatest near-miss of all-time against Bayern Munich in 1983.
HAT TIP
We don't really know why he's done it - let's chalk it up to international week - but if you're going to idle away 20 minutes on any Google doc today, make it Daniel Storey's.
COMING UP
You'd think, given the impassioned endorsement above, there'd be Women's U17 World Cup action here. But you'd be wrong, as it's a rest day. So why not tuck into some Women's Champions League last 32 action instead?
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