Wayne Rooney was scathing about Manchester United’s first half against Roma and singled out Bruno Fernandes for the opening goal. By full time the captain had scored the penalty that started a 3-2 comeback, and was talking about “lies” in the media.
United arrived at Old Trafford on Tuesday on a nine-game winless run. They were 2-0 down at the interval. Then they scored three times in 28 minutes to win. The swing in performance was matched by a swing in the commentary, and Rooney, working for Amazon Prime, supplied both halves of it.
Rooney at half-time: “nothing, absolutely nothing”
Asked at the break whether United had hit a new low, Rooney said there had been “a lot of those lately”. He wanted a reaction to the criticism the team had received and did not see one. “There was nothing, absolutely nothing,” he said, according to Football365’s account of his comments. “Roma took the ball and were more aggressive, no one on the United team put a tackle in.”
He then made it personal. On Roma’s first goal, he argued that when Dalot pushed higher, Fernandes should have dropped into that position. “He has to run back, you’re the captain of the football club, run back and take responsibility,” Rooney said. He added that the team looked short of confidence and ideas: “the team is shot to bits.”
Fernandes’s answer
Fernandes scored a retaken penalty in the 58th minute, after VAR ruled that the first attempt, which Roma had celebrated as a save, had to be taken again, and that started the recovery. Matheus Cunha then scored twice in the final seven minutes, before being sent off. Afterwards Fernandes spoke to the media for the first time since being dropped after he publicly criticised Michael Carrick’s tactics following the 4-1 loss at Como.
“There’s been a lot of speculation in the media,” he told Amazon Prime, as reported by the BBC. “A lot of lies around many things that have happened between me and the manager.” He said the pair had cleared the air, and that being left on the bench was fair: “if it was [a punishment], it was right. The manager is the one who makes the decisions.” Asked whether the win would save Carrick’s job, he said: “We don’t need to save anyone’s job.”
Where Rooney landed
The interesting part is that Rooney did not stay on the attack. After the final whistle he said the second half had been “amazing” and that United “deserved to win”. He said Fernandes had “shown a bit of passion in defending himself on what he thought was right”, and, more importantly, had shown it on the pitch. His complaint was about the first 45 minutes, not about the player’s character.
It is not the first time he has been on this subject. Last month he said that United’s players are “like babies” and that Fernandes needed a break from the firing line. Tuesday put both halves of that argument on the same night: the same player, the same system, and a very different second half.
What it settles
Not much about Carrick. The BBC’s report notes that United are 17th with one league win in nine, and one night does not change that. Former Leicester goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel, speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, said he hoped the club could “draw a line under all this public stuff”. Rooney’s two verdicts, one at half-time and one after the game, show how quickly pundit opinion on United moves. The question for the next league game is which half turns up.
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