After a series of stinking performances in a row, Jose Mourinho finally succumbed to sense and left Wayne Rooney out of the starting XI to face Leicester City at Old Trafford.
From a distance, it’s the easiest decision he’ll make all season.
Wayne Rooney is hopelessly out of form, has been in decline for at least two seasons and has had plenty of opportunities so far this season to cement his place in Manchester United’s team.
However, because it’s Rooney, the England and United captain, such a decision was always going to make headlines.
Despite it being glaringly obvious why Rooney was dropped to the bench, Mourinho was still asked about his decision, and said it was merely to get more pace into the team in the form of Marcus Rashford and Lingard.
Mourinho may have admonished Luke Shaw following United’s loss to Watford, and Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Jesse Lingard after the 1-2 loss to Manchester City, but he offered no such criticism of Rooney ahead of the early Premier League kick-off.
“Rashford plays and Lingard plays,” Mourinho told Sky Sports ahead of the game.
“The question I knew would be Rooney but the question should be why Lingard and Rashford. Because they are quick, the way they stretch the game and when our main striker is Zlatan we need fast people to surround him.
“The last thing I want to do is hurt players. In a normal football media, in a normal football country I would say we have 23 players we have very important games and if Rooney doesn’t play today he plays the next one. In other circumstances it’s just a normal decision. “
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