We are on the final international break of 2018. Although it’s a break period, there is still plenty of news circulating on this Thursday. Let’s take a look at some of the relevant news and notes making the rounds within the Manchester United community online right now.
Obviously, the big news today was the Wayne Rooney Foundation International, i.e. England’s total domination of the United States in a friendly at Wembley Stadium tonight.
It was a wonderful send-off for Three Lions and Manchester United’s all-time leading scorer, who wore the number 10 and the captain’s arm band when he came on in the second half.
While his final appearance for England was glorious, his last days in a United shirt were anything but. He failed to even feature in the League Cup final win over Southampton in 2017, and only saw a few minutes off the bench towards the end of the Europa League final victory in Stockholm.
“It was embarrassing,” Rooney admitted as he said those two matches helped convince him it was time to move on.
England beat the USA 3-0, with one of the goals coming from United midfielder Jesse Lingard. And when he achieved his scoring strike, a lot of United fans on social media all said the same thing, as this collection of embedded tweets will attest to.
Finally, international breaks are not fun at all, they’re quite boring actually, but a fan game to play during them is “why was Jose Mourinho at this match?”
Mourinho was in Brussels to watch Belgium beat Iceland 2-0 and he was obviously there to scout January transfer targets (i.e. Toby Alderweireld). He wasn’t there to support Romelu Lukaku and Marouane Fellaini, because neither player was in the squad tonight for the Belgians
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Lineups.com and Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.