Wayne Rooney - the most criminally overrated player since Beckham

[boundngag]

I am so sick of all the talk of Wayne Rooney! Apparently, it's some sort of national disaster that Rooney is out injured and will miss two England qualifiers! I've got news for you - it isn't. Has Rooney ever delivered for England? No. Does he ever deliver against good teams? No. Does he ever deliver at international tournaments? No. Does he ever deliver against the good club teams when playing for Man Utd? No. The reason for this is not down to factors such as bad luck, poor form (unless this it is counted as 'poor form' when it stretches over whole seasons) or injuries, it is because of one simple reason. Wayne Rooney is not and never has been world class. Has Britain not learnt anything since Sven thought Beckham was absolutely brilliant, attempted to build a whole team around him and failed to realise that Beckham was not actually that good? English people just choose to delude themselves that he is, because, being England, it surely can't be possible that we are just not capable of producing world class footballers. In my humble opinion, the last world class player we produced was Paul Gascoigne. Yes, really that long ago. World Class footballers today include, in my humble opinion, Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta, Cristiano Ronaldo and Xavi. Is Wayne Rooney as good a player as any of those? I for one do not think so. For all anyone knows, Ferguson brought Van Persie (I saw him on Match of the Day wearing a Man Utd shirt last night. It made me feel sick. It just looked so very wrong) to replace Rooney, rather than to play with him. If he does, probably only Man City would stump up the money. I don't think he's good enough to get in the Barcelona or Real Madrid teams. Roy Hodgson should look at Rooney's record against big clubs, for England, his injury record and his disciplinary record and decide not to build his team around him. In my humble opinion, that's the way forward. Everyone seems to think that qualifying for the next world cup will be easy. But the fact of the matter is that England are not that good anymore and could struggle, especially if Hodgson attempts to build the team around Rooney.