🚨 Wayne Rooney on Elliot Anderson:
“During the Liverpool City game, I remember thinking something I probably shouldn’t say as a former United player.
How have City ended up with another one?
Because I’m looking at this lad and thinking, that’s exactly the type of midfielder I’d want in my team. Imagine United ended up signing him and Baleba.
Not just because he can pass. There are plenty of midfielders who can pass a football when nobody is near them.
I’m talking about a player who wants the ball when the whole stadium is against him.
Anfield is one of the hardest places to play. I know that from experience. You can be having a perfectly good game, make one bad touch, and suddenly 40 or 50,000 people are letting you know about it.
Some players go quiet after that.
Anderson seems to get louder.
He gets fouled, stands up, and asks for it again.
Then he gets fouled again.
At one point I was thinking, ‘Surely they’ll leave him alone now.’
They didn’t.
Eight fouls. Eight times they brought him down.
I remember when I was younger, playing against experienced midfielders who would give you a little kick early in the match. Nothing dramatic. Just enough to let you know they were there.
You’d have a decision to make.
Do you start worrying about the next challenge, or do you keep playing your football?
Anderson made his decision very quickly.
What impressed me wasn’t even the amount of running he did, although covering more than 11 kilometres at Anfield is some shift.
It was what he did between those runs.
He’d win a challenge, move into space, take the ball under pressure and play forward. Then he’d be there again when City lost possession.
100 touches. 11 duels won. 71 completed passes.
Those are good numbers, but watch how he gets them. He’s not hiding in an easy position just to keep his passing statistics looking nice.
He’s involved in everything.
Then you look at Doku’s goal.
Anderson gets his head up and plays that long pass into the space. Doku takes it, runs towards the box, slows down, cuts inside and bends it into the far corner.
Brilliant finish.
But I always look at the pass before the goal. Anderson doesn’t just hit it forward and hope somebody gets there. He sees the run and gives Doku a ball he can attack.
That’s what good midfielders do.
Now, I look at him from an England point of view, and I think we’ve got a serious player here.
We’ve got some excellent attacking talent in this country. Everybody talks about the players who score, the players who dribble, the players who make the headlines.
But if England want to win major tournaments, we need players who can control the middle of the pitch when the opposition are trying to make life miserable.
That’s where Anderson interests me.
I don’t want to see him become a player who only looks good because City dominate possession. I want to see him take this personality into England games, especially against the strongest nations.
And from what I’m watching, I don’t think he’ll be frightened of that responsibility.
Someone asked me whether I thought he was the best player on the pitch against Liverpool.
I said, ‘For me, yes.’
They said, ‘Even with Haaland, Doku and Cherki scoring?’
I said, ‘Somebody has to do the work that allows those players to enjoy themselves.’
Anderson did plenty of that work.
Now, here’s the part that annoys me.
I look at United, and I look at the midfielders we’ve been crying out for over the years. Players with energy, aggression, intelligence, who can handle the pressure and actually want responsibility.
Then I turn on the television and see one doing all of that in a Manchester City shirt.
I’m delighted for England, don’t get me wrong.
But as a United fan, watching him dominate the midfield at Anfield for City is a very strange feeling.
Because I spent years enjoying beating Liverpool.
I never imagined I’d be sitting at home wishing one of City’s midfielders was wearing red while doing it.”
Your City XI to face Liverpool 🩵
XI | Donnarumma, Nunes, Dias (C), Guéhi, O'Reilly, Anderson, Fernández, Ndiaye, Cherki, Semenyo, Haaland
SUBS | Rulli, Kovačić, Doku, Reis, Gvardiol, Bouaddi, Allan, Khusanov, Lewis
🤝 @etihad
Your City XI to face Liverpool 🩵
XI | Donnarumma, Nunes, Dias (C), Guéhi, O'Reilly, Anderson, Fernández, Ndiaye, Cherki, Semenyo, Haaland
SUBS | Rulli, Kovačić, Doku, Reis, Gvardiol, Bouaddi, Allan, Khusanov, Lewis
🤝 @etihad