After a couple of days heres my thoughts on the subject and what im doing to my team
Firstly im not going to ignore the subject because after GW1 UNited have the following fixtues
1. Fulham H
2. Southampton A
3. Wigan H
With those fixtures United just cant be ignored and swept under the carpet until SAFs intentions are more certain as all hell could break loose in those fixtures. even ignoring those fixtures you have to have Utd captain options. So if not RVP or Rooney who then
kagawa
young
valenica
Nani
who knows who will play of these 4 and when?
so to me you need one of them in your team. just for the sake of clarity it has to be iinsanit to consider having 2 in your team
So heres the factors and my thoughts,
1. RVP will surely play further forward than Rooney. That has to help RVPs case, Rooney could ecome some sort of attacking midfielder behind RVP with him and Kagawa taking turns going forward.
2. RVP will take pens in my view and probably free kicks. i dont have stats to back this up but intuitively i think RVP is more reliable from that spot(would be glad if someone does have statson conversion)
3. RVP can score against any opposition home or away. Rooney is a bit more home orientated which in some ways is an advantage as that is where the captains armband is worn. last year they both scored 17 goals and 3 assists at home bit Rooney RVP got 13 goals and 6 assists away whereas Rooney got 10 and 1. RVP had the better away underlying stats Rooney marginally at home.
4. However if RVP plays on the flank in a 3 then thats a real worry. He really didnt show any of the Arsenal form when his position changed
5. In overall underlying stats terms Rooney is more involved in the game . Shot stats are very similar but RVP creates more chances
so what have I done
Ive kept my options open and saved £3.5m so I can buy either, 1 game isnt going to give all the answers but i want the flexibility to pick either. RVP will probably be sub giving no clues….
If i had to pick one now for the short term I would pick Rooney as RVP really hasnt had much of a pre-season and the risk is that he will be eased in and mss a proportion of those 3 easy games. In the long term my instinct is for RVP .
hope that gives everyone a few thoughts on the matter
cheers