How Many More Times Will Wayne Rooney Get Away With This?

A good place to start this article is to state that I think Wayne Rooney is a great player.

He has an incredible amount of skill and wicked power in his shot. You can never doubt his commitment to Manchester United, or England, each time he plays for them.

However, it is very true to say that this commitment crosses the line to thuggery far too often.

The picture above is all too familiar for football fans. It quite clearly shows Rooney intentionally stamping on the groin of Portuguese player, Ricardo Carvalho.

In the last number of weeks, the "thuggish" side of Rooney has appeared yet again.

Against Aalborg in a pretty much meaningless Champions League match, Rooney lunged at two of the Danish-side's players with studs showing. Both "tackles" deserved a red card, yet Rooney remained on the pitch.

A subsequent investigation from UEFA found that Rooney had nothing to answer. Upon seeing the tackles most people would feel different.

Then yesterday in the away match against Stoke, Rooney once again let the least favourable side of his character emerge.

Challenging for the ball at the corner flag with Abdoulaye Faye, the United forward threw an elbow at the Stoke defender. Luckily for Rooney, and Faye for that matter, he missed but is it not true that intent to injury is just cause for sanction?

Watching the replays of the incident, it is astounding that Rooney managed to stay on the pitch seeing as the linesman was right beside the incident.

I'm not calling for some witch hunt against Rooney, or for him to be given a long ban, but surely something must be done to tell him this kind of play will not be tolerated.

Indeed he is not the only player at it but his actions over the last number of weeks, and his status, creates cause to highlight this behaviour.

Of course another thing that needs to be highlighted in all this is the response of the English tabloid media in all this—redtops and Sky etc.

The English media more so than anyone create a huge division between "us" and "them".

In the Rooney/Carvalho incident, who was painted the bad guy?

Cristiano Ronaldo!

Yes, because Ronaldo winked at the bench and the English media then spun a line which far too many people got suckered into—Ronaldo tried to get Rooney sent off.

I'm sorry did I miss something? Did Ronaldo place Rooney's studs into a very important and tender part of Carvalho's anatomy?

Then of course there is the good old English tabloid argument that "Rooney is Rooney. You can't change him that is the player he is."

Well...then Patrick Vieira was just being Patrick Vieira!

No, see that won't work because Vieira was a "Johnny Foreigner" who brought all his bad habits from the continent to the haven of good sportsmanship, the English Premier League.

It is evident when it comes to other forms of cheating such as diving. Well actually you "dive" depending on whether you are English or not. Drogba, Van Persie, Ronaldo and Torres are all "divers" but Steven Gerrard in the game against Atletico Madrid "used the situation to maximum effect in order to gain an advantage for his team thus playing a captain's role". I'm not kidding, that's what was actually said on ITV.

So I'm not holding my breath for anything to be made out of Rooney's elbow yesterday. There was certainly nothing made of it in all the highlight programmes last night.

Why question the actions of an Englishman when Johnny Foreigner down at the Emirates is having another go at the officials? So Ferguson does it, but sure he's British and that's nearly English, they can't be questioning one of their own.

Objectivity and journalists!