‘It was not the Rooney I remember – fighting, running – nothing’: Fabio Capello says former England captain lost elite level ability at Everton

• Fabio Capello criticised Wayne Rooney’s performance levels after Everton return
• The Italian said Rooney ‘lost all his characteristics’ when he rejoined the Toffees 
• Rooney scored 11 goals but left for the MLS at the end of the 2017-18 season

By

Laurie Whitwell for the Daily Mail

Published:
17:32 EST, 18 February 2019

|
Updated:
20:38 EST, 18 February 2019

Fabio Capello says he knew Wayne Rooney‘s career at elite level was over when he watched him play for Everton and perceived the former England captain had lost his fight.

In a sharp critique of Rooney’s second spell at Goodison Park, Capello claims he was not the same striker as he had been when playing under the Italian for his country.

Rooney scored 11 goals in 40 matches during the 2017-18 season but, as revealed by Sportsmail, was told to leave by Everton at the end of the campaign. He signed for DC United until 2021.

Fabio Capello has criticised Wayne Rooney’s performances for Everton during his second spell

Capello said Rooney ‘lost all his characteristics’ and wasn’t the player he coached with England

Former England boss Capello was speaking at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Monaco

Rooney, 32, was managed for four years by Capello with England, and the Italian did not hold back when discussing his current situation.

‘Rooney is a good player, but I saw the season when he returned to Everton and he didn’t perform well,’ said Capello, speaking at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Monaco. 

‘He was on the pitch like a different person. He was not with the team. It was not the Rooney I remember – fighting, running – nothing. He lost everything, all his characteristics.

‘He decided to go to America. The football is different, it’s a new experience and a lot of Italian players go there at the end of their careers.’

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‘It was a massive result’: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer hails ‘perfect’ Manchester United display as his men bounce back from PSG loss to beat Chelsea and book FA Cup date with Wolves

• Ole Gunnar Solskjaer described the win at Chelsea as a ‘massive result’
• Manchester United comfortably won 2-0 to set up quarter-final with Wolves 
• Solskjaer was pleased with how his players responded to PSG disappointment 
• Paul Pogba, who shined in the win, put it down to the trust he has in Solskjaer 

By

Sami Mokbel for MailOnline

Published:
18:05 EST, 18 February 2019

|
Updated:
20:22 EST, 18 February 2019

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer hailed Manchester United‘s display in the win at Chelsea and called it a massive result after their defeat in the Champions League last week.

‘It was a perfect performance defensively,’ said Solskjaer. ‘The tactics worked well. I asked the players to defend higher up the pitch and they did.

‘It was a massive win after the defeat by Paris Saint-Germain and the criticism we had.’ Paul Pogba put United’s victory down to the trust he and his team-mates have built up with interim boss Solskjaer.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer called Manchester United’s win at Chelsea a ‘massive result’

Pogba added to Ander Herrera’s goal with a header on the stroke of half-time and said: ‘Ole trusts us and we trust him. We play to win trophies and he has come in to deliver that.

‘Tonight was a beautiful win and a great performance by the team.’ Former Chelsea striker and BBC pundit Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink slammed his old team, saying: ‘These are worrying times for them. There was no hunger off the ball, nothing.’ 

Paul Pogba put in a man-of-the-match display, setting up the first and heading in their second

Ex-England captain Alan Shearer was critical of Chelsea’s defending for both goals. ‘Chelsea have played right into their hands and Man United have just picked them off.’ he said. ‘You can’t give good players time and space.

‘Jorginho is a good passer of the ball, when Chelsea go forward he is a positive but when they don’t he is a huge negative because he doesn’t smell danger. If Kante was in that position, that goal wouldn’t have happened.

‘We think the first cross from Pogba was great but this was unbelievable. Marcus Rashford just bided his time and picked out a terrific cross. It’s terrible defending all over the pitch from Chelsea and poor goalkeeping as well but again it’s a brilliant goal from a Man United perspective.’

The midfielder put the victory down to the trust he and his team-mates have with Solskjaer

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Manchester City already had six good reasons to believe they would end Chelsea’s interest in domestic competitions at Wembley on Sunday and now they have two more.

If the 6-0 hiding City administered to Chelsea in the Premier League two weeks ago wasn’t evidence enough of plummeting morale at Stamford Bridge then their neighbours Manchester United put a big red circle around the subject here in West London.

City will surely beat Maurizio Sarri’s Chelsea team in the Carabao Cup Final on Sunday. It already looks the safest of bets. Sarri-ball – whatever it was in the first place – has not so much deflated but exploded in the face of the Chelsea coach.

Maurizio Sarri suffered another defeat – this time at home to Manchester United in the FA Cup

Fans heckled the Chelsea boss’s substitutions and derided his style of play, ‘Sarri-ball’

Manchester United meanwhile showed that defeat to Paris Saint-Germain hadn’t fazed them

After another dispiriting night for the Italian’s team, there already seems no way back for him at Chelsea. 

Here on another very good evening for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s United, Sarri’s players failed him and his supporters barracked him. The Chelsea fans howled derision at the predictability of their manager’s substitutions and heckled his style of play.

At a club traditionally short on patience, they are tiring of their manager before winter is even over. From the optimism of early season – when Sarri’s football seemed brave rather than self-indulgently inflexible – it has been an astonishingly rapid decline.

Confidence is everything in sport of course and undoubtedly Chelsea are suffering. That can happen. Had they scored first here than this game could have been different. They were arguably marginally the better team up until Ander Herrera scored the first goal. 

United ran out comfortable 2-0 winners thanks to goals from Ander Herrera and Paul Pogba

However this group of Chelsea players are not known for their resilience. They are either good or they are bad and rarely anything in between. A chunk of them won a title for Antonio Conte then failed him as soon as the going got heavier the following season. Jose Mourinho could tell you a similar story.

Sadly for Sarri, the towel seems to have been thrown in a little sooner. It is not that Chelsea are not trying. It is never that clear cut. But the small details that so often make the difference at this level are no longer in Sarri’s favour.

One goal looked enough as soon as it went in for United here and that was telling. Theoretically the game was still there to be won for Chelsea but it never felt like that. 

Chelsea have so little cohesion now that it is startling and Sarri does not help himself with the intransigence of his selections and indeed his pronouncements. The contrast with what Solskjaer has done at United is clear. 

Pogba scored Manchester United’s second goal with a header from a Marcus Rashford cross

Defeat to PSG in the Champions League last week clearly hadn’t troubled United much. They have now won away at Arsenal and Chelsea in the competition and that speaks volumes for their direction of travel. United are not the best team in the world, not by some distance. PSG reminded us of that.

Yet they are no longer muddled. Solskjaer is clear in his selections and his tactics. Sarri, meanwhile, refuses to deviate from policies that are no longer working and for a coach that is always very dangerous.

There is much about Chelsea that is still confusing, not least the deployment of N’Golo Kante and Jorginho. Early in the season, with Chelsea playing well and winning matches, the deployment of Jorginho in Kante’s former position at the base of the midfield was explained away simply by pointing at the Premier League table.

Now it is not so easy and currently the whole thing just looks a little baffling. For Kante, a World Cup winner and two-time Premier League champion, to play out of position is impossible to explain on nights like this.

Frenchman Pogba exuded a confidence that was entirely lacking in his Chelsea counterparts

The United talisman was shutdown against PSG but at Chelsea he dominated proceedings

The Frenchman was occasionally dangerous with his scampering runs down the inside right channel. He can trouble defenders. Further back, though, Jorginho was drowning a little, too often out-thought by the hungry dynamism of United’s Herrera.

There is a cleverness about Herrera that sometimes goes unnoticed. He gets beneath the skin of opponents. Here he was busy both with and without the ball and was the best player on the field even before he scored.

Chelsea needed a bounce to go their way, maybe even a bit of luck. But it didn’t happen and in the shape of their new centre forward Gonzalo Higuain they didn’t have the focal point that he was brought to the club to provide.

It is hard to believe that this is a team that didn’t lose a meaningful match until the end of November. That defeat was to Tottenham and, once Sunday’s final against City is done, their London rivals are next up in the Premier League.

Could Tottenham finish Sarri off? It doesn’t sound like the daftest suggestion in the world.

The contrast between Sarri’s plight at Chelsea and that of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is striking