Wayne Rooney has delivered a fierce criticism of Manchester United\u2019s current group, saying anyone who believes they are equipped to compete is \u201cdeluded\u201d and \u201cliving in cuckoo land.\u201d<\/p>\n
The club have chosen to stand by manager Michael Carrick despite an ugly eight-match winless spell, with Saturday\u2019s visit of Chelsea next on the schedule. That decision has broadly been met with approval from supporters, particularly after the 3\u20130 defeat to Bournemouth, which made clear where the frustration lies.<\/p>\n
Rooney, though, aimed his anger squarely at the players. In a wide-ranging rant, he accused them of lacking care, intensity and basic commitment to the shirt.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe players haven\u2019t got a leg to stand on,\u201d he told Stick to United. \u201cWhat\u2019s not fair is the performances they are giving. I looked at the fans, you could see the pain and anger in their faces when those players are walking around the football pitch. You see Mart\u00ednez when Rayan ran round him, they are not getting to the ball, it\u2019s so frustrating.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could score a goal, had ability or whatever, at least I f—ing ran and put myself about as a team. These players are not doing that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love to go in that dressing room and say, \u2018What the f— are you all doing? What type of performances do you think this is? Do you think you deserve to wear the shirt?\u2019 Put a f—ing firework up their a—- because they are not doing anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are seeing players who are numb, look like they have got no emotion, look like they don\u2019t care. Some of them might care, some good lads who are getting dragged down. It is so frustrating to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rooney also questioned whether the squad is even strong enough, especially in attack. He said the team is, at best, mid-table and argued they are being judged too generously after Michael Carrick\u2019s early impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is at best a mid-table team, but if you look at all the mid-table teams, what do they get? They get players working hard, running, tackling and I keep saying it, going back to the basics,\u201d he fumed. \u201cThese players think they are better than what they are.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, what happened when Michael Carrick came in at the start is that it has given the players and the board false hope that they are good enough. He has done well, stuck together, managed somehow to finish third, then the board are thinking, \u2018We are a top four team,\u2019 when in reality they are miles away from it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are deluded if they think the front three are good enough. They wanted Premier League players, they have brought lads from Wolves and Brentford, who have done well, but for signings to take this Manchester United team to the next level, you are living in cuckoo land if you think they are going to achieve that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rooney tore into Manchester United’s players, calling their standards and effort nowhere near enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22116,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,172],"tags":[1836,59,180],"class_list":["post-22117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-epl","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-featured","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}