Rooney And Nani Frustrate As Giggs Destroys Fulham

As I predicted a Fulham team shorn of Danny Murphy, Andy Johnson, Moussa Dembele and Clint Dempsey came to Old Trafford in the FA Cup with one eye on their relegation fight and totally capitulated in one of the most one sided games I have seen this season.

Dimitar Berbatov returned to the place where his talent was wasted by his lethargy, and simply showed us why we let him go. He was awful from start to finish and is now just a pale shadow of the player we bought from Spurs. He has faded faster than Michael Owen did, and with it all hope of Fulham finding any sort of scoring form is long gone.

Alongside him Bryan Ruiz made a pretty decent effort at matching Berba in every department, to the extent that at times the Fulham attack was coming at us at walking pace. Shameful!

By contrast, our team of players who either cover for the first XI or have no depth of cover for their position just strolled around passing Fulham as though they were statues.

Patrice Evra and Rafael played with David De Gea and Michael Carrick because we have no cover for their positions. Anders Lindagard showed he is a fumbling wreck, and Alexander Buttner has not kicked on from his impressive debut. Rafael has no challenge at right back and Carrick’s cover is now Phil Jones who needed minutes and so played centre-back.

All of these players did well as expected, but with little to disturb them on the day.

Of the squad players, Anderson did ok, he remains an enigma, strong but easily injured, weighty but fleet of foot, tough tackler but deft passer. Often excellent but sometimes awful. He did enough to show he is cover for Tom Cleverley but no more than that.

Jones and Chirs Smalling were just fine, a glimpse of the future first choice pairing and they are maturing just fine.

Upfront Javier Hernandez is cover for Robin van Perfect, and would walk into any other Premier league first XI including Manchester City’s.

Ryan Giggs was excellent, yet again. Dare I say that on days like this he is as good as he ever was despite his age!

So that leaves just Wayne Rooney and Nani about whom I’d like to focus.

Rooney had a very average game. He started poorly losing possession every time he touched the ball in the first 15 minutes as well as misplacing passes.

In between he missed many chances that the old Rooney would have buried and then score the goal of the game when he trusted his often ignored left peg to score a goal reminiscent of his first European goal for United. Surely the goal of the game, made by an Anderson pass and finished in style.

Rooney looks slow to me, he favours his right foot all the time and his work rate is laudable but half hearted at times.

Rooney would not be in my United first XI right now, he just isn’t doing enough to make me confident in him, his star is in the decline at United and Berbatov knows what that means.

Nani must have read the newspapers this week wondering about his location next season as Wilfried Zaha is most certainly the man who puts his back up wing berth most at threat.

When Sir Alex Ferguson first started tracking Zaha it must have been to replace the retiring Giggs, and Nani must have thought he would outlast the Welshman at United but now I doubt it.

Nani played right and left wing but was far too selfish when he made he moves to enter the box, and his off target shooting from beginning to end was like the last desperate effort of a player who knows he just doesn’t have enough t make it at the very highest level.

Despite the off key performances of these two, we won this game at a canter.

The summer transfer market is the one we make our biggest moves in and today we saw Nani, and maybe Rooney, in the shop window.

Shinji Kagawa needs to improve to take the Rooney role, and Zaha will get his chance to back up Ashley Young and Antonio Valencia while Federico Macheda tries to secure a move away to allow Danny Welbeck to develop unopposed.

As a sign of the future this game gave us some pointers, but as a spectacle it died from the moment Rooney was fired from his penalty taking duties and the man who will always be Mr FA Cup in my book, showed us that class and fitness equals longevity.

Think about that Berba and Rooney when you tuck into your dinner tonight.

By Steve Burrows CBE @ifollowsteve


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