Manchester United Balls: Wayne Rooney Blames Defenders And His Independent Leg For Red Card

WHEN Manchester United captain Wayne Roony was sent off, Alan Shearer had yhe focus of his Sun column settled:

WAYNE ROONEY’S stupidity was symptomatic of just where Manchester United are right now.

Rooney was sent off not because he’s an agressive berk.  Rooney was sent off because United are in a “confused mess”.

If a red can can be explained away by the club’s condition, why aren’t there more red cards at Carlise, say, or some other struggling club?

The problem is, Rooney is trying to do everyone’s job to get them out of it.

No. BBC pundit Phil Neville explains what happened on Match of the Day:

“When Rooney made the foul, I thought United must have been in trouble at the back. But they were four against two and all the defenders were in good positions. It’s just a reckless tackle. There’s no need to make the foul because of the position the United defenders were in.”

You see? And if you add the United ‘keeper, that five against two. Rooney lost his cool. But Alan Shearer passes the buck:

…it was probably down to a lack of trust in them on Rooney’s part that he made the challenge.

Yeah. Probably.

Alan could finish ther. But he adds:

I did not see a single other player in a red shirt put in even half the effort he did at Leicester the week before. He was back tackling around his own box, setting things going and influencing all their best attacking moves high up the pitch. He was the one shouting at his team-mates to sort themselves out as the game started to dramatically slide away from them.

Or as James Ducker notes in the Times:

Rooney said that he could understand why some might view his sending-off as a sign of his old temper flaring but the striker — who had cut an exasperated figure during the 5-3 defeat by Leicester City six days earlier when he was booked for dissent and seen barking at team-mates — claimed that he had only set out to trip Downing.

We’ll end with the worlds of Rooney, who explains:

“I haven’t absolutely volleyed the lad. I have tried to trip him up and he got farther away from me and that is why my leg is straighter than it should have been. As he pushed the ball away, my leg has straightened out and that is obviously why the referee [Lee Mason] has deemed it a red card.”

His leg straightened out. That thing has a mind of its own…