Rooney – Don’t blame Memphis for Chelsea draw
Manchester United captain Wayne Rooney has jumped to the defence of Dutch teammate Memphis Depay after fans criticised the winger’s poor decision-making that eventually lead to Diego Costa’s late equaliser on Sunday.
Fans went to Twitter to vent their frustration at the winger’s lackadaisical pass that was meant for midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin but instead went out of play and ultimately resulted in Chelsea recovering possession.
And less than a minute later the hosts were down the other end of the pitch as defender Daley Blind disregarded his marking duties on Costa to attempt to intercept the pass that eventually reached the Spanish striker.
Twitter: Memphis Depay to blame for that goal. Misplaced a simple 4-yard pass to Morgan who was in acres of space. (@joemccorriston)
However, speaking to the Manchester Evening News, Rooney does not believe that fans should lay the blame on the £25million summer signing from PSV:
I think we’re all disappointed. Memphis is a fantastic player and that happens, we all give bad passes away. A lot of things happened from when you give the ball away to when they’ve scored the goal, so I don’t think we can stand here and blame Memphis.I think there were other things which happened and why they’ve scored.
30-year-old Rooney also admitted that he believed the side sat back and invited the pressure from Chelsea after taking the lead in the 61st minute through winger Jesse Lingard:
The game was broken up a bit, we gave too many free-kicks away and then we couldn’t get up the pitch. But with Chelsea, at times it’s difficult, because they pushed players up front and they didn’t really play with any system, so it’s difficult to work out how to defend against them.