Wayne Rooney has criticised United’s performance – or rather, lack of – against Manchester City on Sunday, as the Reds suffered one of the most embarrassing derby defeats in recent years.
United ensured David Moyes’ first Manchester derby was one to forget as they surrendered four goals in the first 50 minutes, with City punching holes through United’s midfield at will, Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand buckling under pressure against Sergio Aguero and Alvaro Negredo and Danny Welbeck never involved in the game.
Rooney was arguably the only United player to deserve some credit as, unlike the majority of his team-mates, the 27-year-old at least seemed to care about the result and refused to let the game pass him by.
“It is not good enough. We know we have to improve on that and stop giving these sloppy goals away and try to capitalise on some of our good play, which I thought there was even if it was too late in the game.
“Fair enough, City deserved the victory. We gave sloppy goals away. As I said before, it is not good enough,” said Rooney whose wonderful free-kick three minutes from time took his tally for the club to 201, a statistic he wasn’t too interested in considering the circumstances
“It is nice to score but it means nothing. It is a bad day for us but we have another big game against Liverpool on Wednesday. We will forget about this now and try to move on in that one. It is the ideal game. Any game against Liverpool is a big game, whether it is a friendly or Capital One Cup or Premier League. It is still massive,” said the United striker whose gone from misfit to talisman in the space of six weeks.
Nemanja Vidic, who incidentally made his Manchester United debut in a 4-1 defeat away at Manchester City, seconded Rooney’s words and admitted Wednesday’s Capital One Cup game against Liverpool can’t come soon enough.
“The most important thing that the new manager and the old manager said was that you have to bounce back and win the next game.
“It hurts. You don’t want to lose derby games in this way and trust me no-one will want to remember this.”
