Man United captain Rooney dropped by Mourinho

MANCHESTER, England – Manchester United captain Wayne Rooney was dropped for the English Premier League game against champion Leicester on Saturday.

Rooney was demoted to the bench by United manager Jose Mourinho, who said Friday that the striker had not been the same player since he was criticized for his display for England against Slovakia in early September.

Aside from being occasionally rested, Rooney has not been dropped by United since he was left out by Louis van Gaal against Stoke midway through last season. Before that, he was also dropped for the last three games of Alex Ferguson’s long reign in the 2012-13 season after falling out with the United manager.

The 30-year-old Rooney has scored one goal in eight games for club and country this season.

Mourinho said in his first news conference as United manager that he will only play Rooney as a centre-forward or as a deep-lying forward. Rooney faces strong competition in those areas, with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Marcus Rashford preferred as striker and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Paul Pogba and Juan Mata as options in the No. 10 role.

Mata replaced Rooney against Leicester, with Ibrahimovic and Rashford also starting.

Rooney has struggled for form in United’s recent games, with critics saying he has lost pace and explosiveness and slows down the team’s attacking tempo.

Mourinho made a direct correlation between Rooney’s poor form and perceived media criticism the striker received after his England performance on Sept. 4 against Slovakia. England won that game 1-0.

“Honestly,” Mourinho said, “I think there was a Wayne before the Slovakia-England and a Wayne after Slovakia-England.”

Rooney is England’s record scorer on 53 goals. He has also scored 246 times for United and needs four more goals to surpass Bobby Charlton as the club’s record scorer.