The former right back, who was discussing United’s transfers with Graeme Souness and Ed Chamberlin on Sky Sports before United’s win over Leicester City. Pogba made it 4-0 by heading in Blind’s outswinging corner for his first goal for United since returning as the world’s most expensive player. I am very happy for the result and the goal – I hope that is not going to be the last. If I leave out Rooney you ask me why, but I can not pick them all. And I only can start with XI.
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“I have to analyse this odd match because we start very well”, Ranieri said. My team as a team played very well.
“My captain is my captain”.
“If he (Rooney) is on the pitch or at home, he is my captain”. That’s not a problem. The first four games we were good, the two games then [against City and Watford] after we knew were going to be hard, and now today we showed on the pitch a big performance from the team. We knew it was going to be hard.
“Everyone has to hold their hands up and it’s definitely something we can learn from and move onto the next game”.
Rooney replaced Rashford in the 83rd minute and played on the left of the front three after Leicester grabbed one back in the second half with a strike from Demarai Gray.
“Of course, he is as happy as I am”, Mourinho told reporters. “Pogba still needs to be consistent, but you can say that about the team as a whole”.
Rooney watched United’s rampant first half display from the sideline as Juan Mata was preferred in the position behind the striker. “Sometimes when I read you (in the media), I feel I know nothing about football”. It is not easy against them and not easy to win in the style that we did. So it’s normal that in their football brains there are still moments of contradiction.
The Portuguese mastermind reflected that they needed quicker players around his first-choice forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
The 31-year-old England skipper – who on Thursday had said he didn’t pay any attention to outside criticism of his form – has failed to sparkle and was anonymous in the two Premier League defeats United suffered last week. Even though three of the home side’s goals came from corners, the overall performance was aggressive and entertaining.
“Suddenly then we conceded a goal with a corner and that’s odd because we’re strong on the corner”. We lost our shape, our confidence, our strength.
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“Obviously we all want more from him and the team”. When the team played not so well, he didn’t play so well.
