Jourdan

Why is Rooney the ‘magnet’ for investors?
The name, the brand doesn’t matter if he hasn’t got the skills to back it up.

Why is Rooney the ‘magnet’ for investors?
The name, the brand doesn’t matter if he hasn’t got the skills to back it up.

Tactically he seems to have got it wrong in recent weeks. We were too deep against Blackburn, had no out ball and sibley and jozwiak weren’t at the races.
Sibley is out of position, he’s not getting the best out of jozwiak. He also inexplicably dropped Buchanan who he been very good in the previous two matches. At half time he made two changes and still didn’t really use kazim as an out ball. 

Morrison also played too deep and wasn’t used. Shinnie and Lawrence were lucky not to be sent off and now Rooney is asking for more aggression. It’s confused and it’s directionless.
Last night we went back to being direct, but had no wingers. The players were flat seemingly in both games, meanwhile Lawrence seems completely silent off the pitch and far from a captain. 
 
I honestly think a bit of tactical nous and support and we’d have scrambled something out of both games. 
 
We are now in a similar situation to exactly the same time last season, Rooney seems clueless as to how to shake the team out of a poor run of form.
For me, though Rooney needs support. When cocu left he took two other coaches with him, they’ve not been replaced and we have sadly lost Shane nicholson. A bit more intelligence supporting Rooney and maybe a couple of different ideas in the coaching room. That’s what I think he needs. Sadly he won’t get it and we will continue to struggle and see some strange team selections and tactics.
 
Oh well.
 
 

What makes you say we haven't been scouting? Surely you're on the windup

You thought we were good tonight? We were playing a team who had lost 7 on the bounce. We could have been 3-1 down at HT. They then dominated for the first 25 mins of the second half. We put some pressure on in the last 15 mins and should have scored at the end with the header, but to say that performance was good is, well, staggering.....

You are rarely wrong, statement of the season so far on here....

Totally agree. Once the ownership and all the other elements are sorted bring in someone better equipped to move the team forward....

So when are Newcastle stealing him from us?

I didn’t think Rooney should have been appointed manager at the beginning and my opinion of him hasn’t changed.
But we have no option but Wayne at the minute,we are in administration and couldn’t pay him off if we wanted to.
End of unless he walked,which he won’t,he has nowhere to go.
 

I agree to a point, but conversely it feels like the more options you give Rooney the more scope he has to make tactical errors by trying to run before he can walk
It's seen as a miracle we've got as many points as we have this season, but there's also an argument as daft as it sounds to say that we might have got fewer points at this stage with a bigger/better squad because of how other clubs have approached games with us.
With our squad the way it is expectations of us from the outside were zero. Some  teams will have thought they could just come and steamroller us, but we've shown them differently. They weren't expecting us to bite back, they weren't prepared for it and it's allowed us to pick up some unexpected results.
As you say though, it's been figured out now and we don't have options to change it, so Rooney needs to be learning very quickly, and I'm concerned that he might not be.
The smaller squad should mean everyone is very focused on their jobs, knows their role to a tee, that we have as much continuity as possible and yet we often still look like strangers. It's like on one hand.... great job, exceeding expectations. On the other we're somehow still over complicating things (wing backs in a back 4) and not making the most of every available player (Stearman's lack of game time).
It leaves me feeling quite conflicted.

There's absolutely no point getting rid of anyone right now.
That said I've seen enough to have little confidence that even with no embargo, no administration, a bigger squad, and some transfer funds Rooney will be a success.
Most people are focusing on the here and now (which is fine) but willfully or not I think they're ignoring a few red flags, or seeing them and dismissing them due to the circumstances. There are some fundamental issues that can be brushed aside in the short term while we point at the squad, but in the long run might not be so easily dismissed.
Any discussion on any more specific aspects of his performance seems to be hurriedly ushered away, we'll talk about it when the ownership is sorted. It's either that or Roy comes wading in like some sort of online bodyguard, a one man PR machine dismissing any notion that Rooney could possibly have done anything better or got even a single drop more out of what's at his disposal either last season or this. He should try to get on Rooney's personal payroll, he'd be rich!
The expectation seems to be that because he's (just about) got us competitive with a small squad that all we need are better players, more choices and that alone will lift us up, everything will click and we'll start consistently winning games, not throwing them away from advantageous positions etc.
Personally I've got big doubts it's anywhere near that simple.

Of course we are not down.
How can we be down with 30 games to play and 90 points to play for, or even 81 if you include an incoming points deduction?
We have ten games in the next nine weeks to build a platform for the second half of the season.
This is where Rooney sinks or swims.

How does that suggest tonight was a good performance?
Even Rooney himself described it as ‘a disappointing performance’ and ‘not good enough’.
Sorry that I couldn’t be there tonight. Small issue of a 600-mile round trip and having work in the morning.
But if you saw something in the performance to give you hope, fair play to you.

If Rooney was as switched on as people suggest, he would have brought in his own people when he was offered the job permanently.
We’re always bemoaning the lack of a goalscorer.
How did Luton find Adebayo? How did Blackpool find Yates and Lavery? How did Swansea find Piroe?
Personally I think coaching is the biggest issue but it has to be said that our scouting and recruitment is very uninspiring, restrictions or not.

All the old failings have come back.  The commentator on Sky was saying stuff like 'Huge 5mins left' etc, never for a moment did I have the feeling we would turn it round.
Any team on a bad run must look at the fixture list to see when they are playing us!
Rooney is living off the huge goodwill gained from his attitude and loyalty...his man management has been great but on the pitch we are sliding back to last season's performances.
We will, and we should, remain loyal because of the situation but the only way I see us staying up is if we can renegotiate all the points deductions and get a buyer in who gets us a striker and replaces Rooney before the season ends.

If Rooney was as switched on as people suggest, he would have brought in his own people when he was offered the job permanently.
We’re always bemoaning the lack of a goalscorer.
How did Luton find Adebayo? How did Blackpool find Yates and Lavery? How did Swansea find Piroe?
Personally I think coaching is the biggest issue but it has to be said that our scouting and recruitment is very uninspiring, restrictions or not.

The worry for me is that when we hit a difficult spell, Rooney struggles to remedy the situation.
Six games without a win now. Performances on the downturn. It could be a very long winter.

Anyone know a good trauma councellor as I have Fulham away as one of my midweek awaydays this season?

Classic WUM.
Starts a thread with one incendiary comment and then disappears.

Of course we are not down.
How can we be down with 30 games to play and 90 points to play for, or even 81 if you include an incoming points deduction?
We have ten games in the next nine weeks to build a platform for the second half of the season.
This is where Rooney sinks or swims.

Is there any context that means a 14% win rate over the equivalent of 2/3rds of a season is an acceptable performance though? I think that's a reasonable question to ask. 

The worry for me is that when we hit a difficult spell, Rooney struggles to remedy the situation.
Six games without a win now. Performances on the downturn. It could be a very long winter.

Come on guys, don’t be so down in the dumps.
Rooney has the hardest job in English football. You can’t expect us to compete with Barnsley.
We scored a goal. We ran around a little. Surely that’s enough?

I am losing the will to live, what point are you trying to make? Rooney is a novice learning his trade as a Manager, making a lot of mistakes and errors as he goes. I would have gone for Paul Cook. He is now doing well at Ipswich and has done pretty well wherever he has been, even with little money to spend. But it’s conjecture, he might have done worse, he might have done better, who knows. Not worth even discussing. We can actually judge Wazza on his record, 13 wins in 54, 4 wins in 32 or 3 wins in 16, whichever fact you prefer, take your pick. In my view Managers need to earn the right to manage our great football club, Wazza (and Lampard, I felt the same when he was appointed) haven’t earned that right yet. Get your badges, get your experience in the lower leagues, prove yourself as a Manager and then look at becoming Rams boss. I am off to bed. 

How am I skewing the numbers, they are facts. That is his record. I don’t think that Rooney was the right option when recruited and I stand by that but he ain’t going anywhere soon so a bit of a pointless conversation. I hope he somehow is able to turn things around.