Following on from Arne Slot’s fantastic debut season at Anfield where he led his Liverpool side to a pretty comfortable Premier League title and the all important No 20, the 2025/26 campaign has been a bit mixed.
With a huge spend over the summer as our 47 year old Dutch gaffer really shook up his first team options as we looked to defend our crown, we started brightly enough but for every understandable reason performance levels were not quite right. Trying to bed in so many new team members was always going to be problematic as newbies adjusted to the club and the country and our four game losing streak in the league gave every mouthpiece in the wider game the chance they needed to pile on.
Naturally, former Manchester United and England international striker Wayne Rooney was one to try and make hay from this and for fans who like a flutter and use the likes of https://sport.netbet.co.uk/promotions/ for their entertainment, they would have put good money on Shrek having a pointless and wrong opinion here. He is, after all, pivoting to being a more self important pundit given the utterly failed managerial career that he inflicted on too many fans up and down the country.
Ignoring every available fact at his disposal, the 40 year old decided to again focus on captain Virgil van Dijk and heavily suggested that part of the fall in our form was down to the 34 year old Dutch international basically giving up now that he has finally signed his new contract extension. He also had thoughts on Egyptian wizard Mohamed Salah doing the same after his own extended deal.
“Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah, they’ve signed new deals but I don’t think they’ve really led that team this season. I think body language tells you a lot. They are the top two players in that team and if their body language is not right, that affects everyone else. I might be wrong on this, but if I was a Liverpool fan or the manager, that would be a big concern for me.”
For anyone who understands football they will know Rooney should have opened with ‘I might be wrong’ and just left his insightful commentary there, as quite frankly justice was done immediately following his mini attempt at player assassination we went on to end that run of form by taking victory over Unai Emery’s Aston Villa, and I seem to recall that we just put Spanish La Liga giants Real Madrid to the sword.
In some ways many in the Anfield faithful would have had more respect for Rooney had he then stuck by his words, but no, he almost immediately caved and backtracked on them, calling them ‘unfair’ when Van Dijk called him out for ‘lazy criticism’ whilst praising the calibre of player he was during his playing days. VVD may have taught Rooney a lesson in respect in those comments, because we all know how often Shrek could have easily been on the end of his own words during his career with his no shows, tantrums and even NFL legend Tom Brady questioned the work ethic at Birmingham City recently did he not?
As the Dutch general said, Rooney had little to say last season and as someone who also struggled for form after winning a title (and in fact never won one again) you would think he would know that players who reach the pinnacle do not effectively ‘down tools’ but there are circumstances out of their control.
Image Source: unsplash.com
