Let's face the facts regarding Rooney.........

He is still, at 34, a terrific footballer. Not a hugely high profile debut last night. But for the first goal, Marriott should have been embarrassed to claim it, given the quality of the free kick Rooney took. And for the second, the sweeping pass out to the full back was sublime. There wasn't much between the two sides at Oakwell (a game marred in the memory for most of us) and there wasn't much between them last night. But Rooney's quality helped shade it for Derby.

He has the footballing intelligence to measure his contribution rather than try and be all over the pitch at this stage of his career. And I think to put out in this league shows that he just loves playing - even at a lower level. Whether he is an admirable human being is a whole other question. Whether he is worth 80K a week is a whole other question. But as a pure footballer he remains - even at this stage - a class apart in this league.

 

Sick of hearing about him.

 

To be fair Derby aren’t paying his wages, how is that fair on the rest of the division? I don’t understand how the football league has allowed this to happen.

 

That freekick was nothing special. And against statues it's even easier

 

I remember Kieth Curle and Kevin Richardson coming to us. They had both played in the top flight and had both played for England. Curle totally transformed the defence, and Kevin owned the mid-field. We could do with acouple like that now.... not in the same plane as Rooney but non the less experience like that is required. Kevin was like a Rolls Royce in our mid-field... he was a joy to watch. Curle was a total governor in the back 4 totally organised and controlled our defence to great effect. The present owners do not get it at all... but a spine of perhaps 3 maybe 4 older and experienced guys is what almost every team needs for balance.

 

If it had been Tom Huddlestone who put in that performance he'd be labelled a fat knacker who allowed most of the game to pass him by and is a luxury in central midfield. But because it's Rooney suddenly whipping a decent free kick in is the equivalent of Maradona skinning the entire England team

 

Anyone old enough to remember Jan Molby playing for us on loan will testify he never moved 5 yards but the class he had enabled him to run the show, he was amazing.

 

exactly DP... my point with Richardson and Curle.... if we could do something similar we could shoot up this league. Curle and Richardson never really broke sweat... but what a huge difference they made.

 

It was a decent delivery but you would expect at this level to be defended alot better..... Im just jealous because our set pieces are rubbish

 

When Hourihane was putting that type of cross in, and there were many, they where classed as worldies

 

He put in a very good whipped free-kick. His others weren't of any quality. And yes, he played a cross-field pass. Other than that and a headed miss from 4 yards out, I barely noticed him and believe yesterday's defeat came about through our own lack of quality which I put down to tiredness. The lad Holmes was decent and Lowe at full back was very, very good. Derby probably edged it, they maybe deserved it. But had that handball been in the other box, it's given. So it's another tight defeat. I'm yet to see us clearly second best under Struber.

 

Come on if we had some one who just plodded about in centre circle and did naff all else we'd be going barmy. That free kick was just a whipped into danger zone. Andersons marking was shocking let the guy get a total run him. Watch it back thats the only reason they scored. Its a joke hes at derby and a betting company is paying his wages!!