Barca Legend Backs Rooney For Midfield Role

Former England worldwide Anderson was assistant manager at Middlesbrough to former United team-mate Bryan Robson between 1994 and 2001 and helped them to the final of the League Cup in 1997, when they lost to Leicester.

United failed to register a single attempt on goal during the first half of the derby – the first time they had failed to do so in the Premier League since the 2003/04 season. “I don’t know how it looked from the outside but it didn’t feel like a dynamic derby”, he said. “On another day, the chances we had might have gone in”.

Manuel Pellegrini countered that if that was a penalty then so was a challenge by Rooney on defender Nicolas Otamendi.

But Manchester United wanted three points and manager Louis Van Gaal expressed his disappointment in result.

Wayne Rooney’s struggles at Manchester United are similar to how Gerrard fared at Liverpool.

“No, I don’t give any answer any more about Wayne Rooney because I’m sick of it”.

“We train and go away with England on internationals together so we are very good friends”.

Most of those came from the defensive-minded players, and Rojo was very much among them, doing a fine job at left-back of keeping the likes of City forward Kevin De Bruyne at bay.

Two half-chances did fall for Yaya Toure but his header from Kevin De Bruyne’s corner fell just wide of David De Gea’s right post, before he fluffed his effort from 15 yards after De Bruyne’s fine centre.

“There were two well-organised teams, who were always going to find it hard to break through”.

“The way that we played it was one (a game) that could have been more”.

At least the point earned by the Sky Blues takes them to the top of the table, level on points with Arsenal but ahead of the Gunners thanks to their superior goal difference. But Smalling believes it was the type of performance that proves United are genuine title challengers.

Meanwhile, the club have announced that they will hold a testimonial for Rooney to mark his 12 years at Old Trafford and the striker has pledged to donate all the proceeds from the game to charity.