[boundngag]

As I have said before, I think that he's the most overrated player since Beckham. I think that he's always been over hyped (the right wing English press can't accept that England have no World Class players, so they over hype the players they do have). For me, in big games, for England and Man Utd, he has simply never delivered. There's a good reason for that - he simply is not as good as people claim.

The response of so-called football pundits to the now overwhelming evidence that he is not world class, is simply to repeat like a mantra 'Wayne Rooney is world class'. They never give any evidence or justification for this, they just repeat the phrase. It's the sheer arrogance of the implication that irritates me. The 'I used to play football, I know more than you'. No, you don't necessarily. Just playing football doesn't mean you know about everything it. Their basic intelligence level goes against this, for one thing. I am so sick of ITV commentators, in particular Clive Tyldsley's hyperbole 'great tracking back by Rooney', because he would never dare admit Rooney's having another poor game. It's all a bit Alan Partridge, loathing the general public and insisting to himself that he knows more than they do, however little this is backed up by reality.

Imho, the general public are not thick. They know what someone playing football poorly and continuing to fail to perform on big occasions looks like; simply picture Wayne Rooney. What a deserved kick in the teeth it must have been for him to state he is 'unhappy and confused' at Man Utd and only generate interest from Arsenal (in all likelihood, never likely to submit an actual bid) and Chelsea (who have only made one offer). At some point, football pundits will be obliged to admit to that Wayne Rooney isn't that good after all. Some of the particularly bad ones will probably, untruely, claim that they said that all along....