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Wayne Rooney’s and Louis van Gaal’s FA Cup Assessment Against Arsenal Is Laughable
By Josh Sippie
Arsenal downed a shameful Manchester United 2-1 at Old Trafford to move onto the semi finals of the FA Cup, and while the scoreline might not suggest it, Arsenal truly dominated the game. The only reason why United remained one goal down was because David de Gea was absolutely phenomenal, and ESPNFC agrees.
But Wayne Rooney thinks otherwise. “It was a close game, it could have gone either way” he said (via the Daily Mail).
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Actually, Rooney, it really couldn’t have. Arsenal were on the front foot the entire game. Couple that with the shameful flopping, diving and moaning tactics of United that saw them down to 10 men with six yellow cards and the competition was severely lacking. Prior to the game, Angel Di Maria was pegged as the man who could change the game (per the Evening Standard) and essentially, he did.
Di Maria’s cross into Rooney for their one goal was sublime but it was also the only really good chance they had all game and he offset his own brilliance with his own stupidity in getting sent off.
While the possession numbers would agree with Rooney, anyone who saw the game has to admit that Arsenal never looked in danger of losing, particularly after Danny Welbeck tasted sweet justice and capitalized on De Gea’s only semi-mistake of the game.
“Mistakes happen, but it’s not nice when you’re on the receiving end of one which costs you a goal,” Rooney went on to say. This little bit irked me. He’s pretty much saying that Arsenal didn’t necessarily win the game so much as United’s mistake allowed them too. Arsenal had chance after chance to go up two goals but again, De Gea kept them in the game. And while it was a glorious mistake by Danny Valencia, Welbeck still had to assert some skill to flick the ball past De Gea and let’s not lie, we were all a bit nervous when we saw Welbeck squaring up to an open net.
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Rooney’s statements show such a degree of delusion. Manchester United has been on-and-off all year. Their two signings that cost them over 100 million pounds, Angel Di Maria and Radamel Falcao, are proving to be wasted money, they’re at risk to miss the Champions League yet again and he’s making delusional comments like this, completely underselling Arsenal’s dominance of the game.
And then there’s Louis van Gaal, who echoed Rooney’s sentiment: “When you haven’t lost because of the opposition, you have lost because of yourself” he said (via Sky Sports). He also said he’s happier having Falcao than Welbeck, but as the stats show, Welbeck is better than Falcao.
The comments by Rooney and van Gaal are delusional. That’s the best word for it. They have such an inflated opinion of Manchester United that anyone who beats them must have gotten lucky, or must have been handed the game.
Arsenal won because they were the superior team. The game flow favored them the entire match. The momentum favored Arsenal the entire match. United continued to embarrass themselves by diving all over the pitch and it started to look like an inferior team attempting to use the ref as a 12th man, but Michael Olivier wasn’t having it.
There comes a time to fess up and admit when you’re beaten. A time to admit you were the lesser team. This was one of those times, but the two poster children of Manchester opted for immaturity and excuses.
Better luck next year.
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