{"id":467321,"date":"2026-03-10T06:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T06:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/467321\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T06:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T06:57:08","slug":"rooney-leaps-to-defence-of-brilliant-gunners-draws-parallel-to-specific-man-utd-vintage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/467321\/","title":{"rendered":"Rooney leaps to defence of ‘brilliant’ Gunners; draws parallel to specific Man Utd vintage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wayne Rooney has launched an impassioned defence of \u201cbrilliant\u201d Arsenal after what he insists has been \u201cunfair\u201d criticism of Mikel Arteta\u2019s side and drew a parallel with one of his Manchester United teams.<\/p>\n

Arsenal are now seven points clear at the top of the Premier League but have been condemned in recent weeks for what pundits and fans have claimed is functional, unattractive football as they look to seal their first title in 22 years.<\/p>\n

Fabian Hurzeler ensured we all \u2013 albeit briefly \u2013 became Arsenal fans through 15 self-satisfied words<\/a> after insisting the Gunners \u201cmake their own rules\u201d and that they weren\u2019t even \u201ctrying to play football\u201d.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Premier League worse for Mikel Arteta; \u2018staggered if he isn\u2019t sacked\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Former Newcastle manager Alan Pardew then caused a stir when he claimed a title win should \u201ccome with an asterisk\u201d<\/a> owing to their style of play.<\/p>\n

But Rooney insists he \u201cactually enjoys watching them play\u201d and believes they have a \u201cgood mix\u201d of methods.<\/p>\n

Speaking on his BBC podcast, Rooney said: \u201cI\u2019ve heard a lot of people talking about Arsenal and the way they\u2019re playing but I think they\u2019ve been brilliant.<\/p>\n

\u201cFootball is played in different ways. Man City have had spells when they were absolutely incredible, the same for my Man United team.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Arsenal have got a good mix, they\u2019ve got different players who score goals, they\u2019re hard to play against, they keep clean sheets. I actually enjoy watching them play.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe set-pieces are part of football \u2013 why would you not use it? They put bodies in the box, if teams aren\u2019t clever enough or haven\u2019t got the players to deal with it, why wouldn\u2019t Arsenal continue to do that?<\/p>\n

\u201cI would be doing it even more if I was Mikel Arteta. It\u2019s part of the game and I love it \u2013 they don\u2019t have to change anything.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Arsenal \u2018risk-averse meat-grinder-style\u2019 will be default in fun-free Premier League<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey maybe haven\u2019t scored as many goals from open play as they would like but they\u2019ve made up for it in other ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last league title we won, we wasn\u2019t great as a team, but nobody is talking about that now. I don\u2019t think Arsenal have been as bad as people are saying, I really don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not saying this because I like Arsenal, I\u2019m saying this because I think the criticism they\u2019re received is very unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rooney did though warn Arsenal that Manchester City are from done in the title race despite trailing them by seven points.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the Premier League is out of reach for Man City yet,\u2019 Rooney added. \u2018They\u2019re well within the title race.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wayne Rooney has launched an impassioned defence of \u201cbrilliant\u201d Arsenal after what he insists has been \u201cunfair\u201d criticism…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[220,218,448,349,50,101,56,54,55,28552],"class_list":["post-467321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-arsenal","tag-football","tag-front-page","tag-manchester-united","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wayne-rooney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}