Featured Image Credit: BBC
Topics: Premier League, Liverpool, Manchester United, Wayne Rooney, Arne Slot, Alexander Isak, Harry Maguire
Ben McCrum
Topics: Premier League, Liverpool, Manchester United, Wayne Rooney, Arne Slot, Alexander Isak, Harry Maguire
Premier League legend Wayne Rooney has called on Arne Slot to drop one Liverpool player following the loss to Manchester United.
On Sunday, Liverpool suffered a brutal 2-1 defeat to historic rivals Manchester United at Anfield, taking their losing streak to four consecutive games.
The result marks the first time that United have beaten Liverpool at their home ground since Louis van Gaal in January 2016, despite the efforts of five different managers across a period of 10 matches in the Premier League and European competitions.
In the wake of the result, Liverpool fans have taken to social media to criticise the performances of several players, namely star forward Mohamed Salah who failed to impress throughout the game.
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But for United legend Rooney, there was one other Liverpool star that had an even worse performance.
Ahead of the 2025/26 season, the pressure on Arne Slot and Liverpool was higher than ever given the amount of money spent on a number of new star signings during the transfer window.
While some of the signings have performed relatively well in their opening matches for the Reds, others have clearly struggled, leading to Rooney arguing that one of them should be dropped.
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After months of dramatic reports linking Alexander Isak to Liverpool across the summer, the Sweden international secured his move to Anfield in September for a British record transfer fee of £125million.
But his performance against United on Sunday has led to Rooney claiming that Slot must drop him for their upcoming match against Eintracht Frankfurt and instead play Ekitike up front.
"I wouldn't play Isak, he hasn't looked ready since coming from Newcastle," Rooney said on his BBC podcast, The Wayne Rooney Show.
"He hasn't trained, hasn't had a preseason. It's so important. While Newcastle were training he was probably sat at home on the phone to his agent for six hours a day trying to get a move.
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"It's so difficult when you don't have a preseason. He might've done stuff by himself but he's paying the price of it.
"On performances, he doesn't deserve to be playing ahead of Ekitike."
Isak remains without a goal in his first four Premier League appearances for Liverpool, with his only goal for the club coming in a 2-1 win over Southampton in the Carabao Cup.
Meanwhile Ekitike has scored five goals in 11 appearances, three of which are in the Premier League, since joining from Eintracht Frankfurt in a deal worth £79m.
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Elsewhere in the podcast, Rooney turned his attention to United's positive performance, praising Harry Maguire after his late header secured the historic win for his side.
When the lineups for the match were announced ahead of kick-off, much of the discussion centred on Ruben Amorim's surprise inclusion of Maguire, who of course paid back his manager's faith in spades.
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So much so, that Rooney now thinks that Maguire should be one of the 26 names included in Tuchel's England squad for the World Cup next summer.
"Harry Maguire, for me, today shows why he should be in the World Cup squad, and I really mean that. I think he's so important," Rooney added.
"I would really have struggled to have dealt with what he's been through, he was a meme for years. He's incredibly strong-minded to have gone through that. I couldn't be happier for him."