Rooney claims Man City star Foden will take ‘ten years’ to reach levels of ‘similar’ Liverpool playe
Wayne Rooney reckons Man City star Phil Foden will take another ten years to reach the goalscoring levels of Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah.
The England international has been in brilliant form this season and especially since Christmas with Foden currently in the best moment of his career.
Rooney: Foden praise shows Mo Salah doesn’t get the credit he deserves
He has contributed 13 goals and four assists in 17 matches in all competitions since Christmas Day with excitement building over his form heading into the European Championships in the summer.
Foden has helped Man City into the quarter-finals in the Champions League, while they are nicely placed to potentially win the Premier League with Pep Guardiola’s men one point behind leaders Arsenal.
And former Man Utd striker Rooney has used Foden as an example of how Liverpool forward Salah, who has 35 goal contributions this season, doesn’t get enough credit for his performances.
Rooney told Premier League Productions: “He’s (Salah) such an incredible player. I still don’t think he gets the credit he deserves. Of course, for some Liverpool fans, he is right up there.
READ MORE: Phil Foden is master of the small spaces and player of the season
“You are seeing different players getting recognition, such as de Bruyne. But what he has been doing for the last three or four years is incredible. The numbers he keeps producing.
Related video: Guardiola talks Man City's Foden thrashing Villa without Haaland or De Bruyne (Metro)
Better than Villa Park,
“He’s such a top world-class player, unfortunately, he is playing at Liverpool. He is somebody that I really enjoy watching. He is a player, who at times in games, you feel like he isn’t interested in the game, but they are always the most dangerous players. You almost forget about them, at times, and then, all of a sudden, he comes to life and changes the game.
“I just don’t think he gets the credit he deserves. You look at Phil Foden, for instance, playing in a similar role, he has got another eight, nine and ten years to get to the numbers Mo Salah has. I would like to see him get more credit.”
Pep Guardiola: Foden can do whatever he wants
Foden, who has an unused substitute in their 4-2 win over Crystal Palace over the weekend, received lots of praise from Man City boss Guardiola after his hat-trick at home to Aston Villa last Wednesday in a 4-1 win.
Guardiola said: “What can I say? Three goals. He didn’t start well but I think the goal helped him a lot for the mood. When Phil plays in a central position he has a sense for goals and he proved it again.
“He can do whatever he wants. He’s a real top-class player. We know it. But he is still open-minded, he has to understand the game. He has to focus on things – sometimes he’s a bit distracted in exactly what you have to do offensively and defensively. But he has a natural talent – a gift – which is special.
“The work ethic is unbelievable and he has an incredible sense of goal. When he has the ball and he’s attacking the back line he is going to score – you had that feeling. It’s not easy to find it and that’s why he’s so special when he’s playing these central positions.”
Big Midweek: Real Madrid v Man City, big-game Bukayo Saka, Xavi, Bayer Leverkusen
Real Madrid v Manchester City is obviously the tie of this Big Midweek, but big-game Bukayo Saka, Xavi and Bayer Leverkusen offer more than intriguing plot lines in Europe, as the Championship title race continues.
Game to watch: Real Madrid v Manchester City
The reigning champions against the 14-time winners. You couldn’t wish for a bigger game of football.
Manchester City have the superior record. They’ve won four, lost three and drawn three against Real Madrid in a history that dates all the way back to 2012, when a 90th-minute Cristiano Ronaldo goal secured a 3-2 win for Jose Mourinho’s Madrid over Roberto Mancini’s City.
After a 1-1 draw in Madrid last season, City cruised to a 4-0 win at the Etihad. Carlo Ancelotti said this week that it was game in which his team “played without personality and courage”, and perhaps more significantly, without the ball for the vast majority of it.
The big difference between now and then is Jude Bellingham, who snubbed Guardiola and City for Madrid in the summer, and has four goals and four assists in six Champions League games this season. His talents will be tested against the world’s best in Rodri, while Kyle Walker’s absence gives Guardiola a right-back dilemma, with Vinicius Junior offering quite the challenge for Rico Lewis if he retains his spot.Related video: Man City train ahead of UCL quarter final trip to Real Madrid (English Football Channel)
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Man City train ahead of UCL quarter final trip to Real Madrid
Much to Pep Guardiola’s frustration, Ancelotti’s side have enjoyed a nine-day break ahead of the clash at the Bernabeu, in which time City have beaten both Aston Villa and Crystal Palace. But Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva have all played just one of those games, and levels of rest are rendered insignificant in games of this magnitude, with rhythm far more crucial to the outcome.
City haven’t lost since December 6, while Madrid have lost just twice all season. They’re both in rhythm; something’s got to give.
Manager to watch: Xavi
Since Xavi announced he would leave Barcelona at the end of the season his side have seen off Napoli in the Champions League to reach the quarter-finals and are unbeaten in La Liga, winning seven of their nine games. There have been reports of a dramatic U-turn and sensational transfer demands on the back of the turnaround, and despite Xavi insisting “I wouldn’t change my decision even if I won the Champions League”, the pressure that’s been relieved, both on him and his players, as a result of his announcement has got to make you wonder whether it was all a ruse.
The Catalans remain a flawed side despite the upturn in results, with Xavi’s use of former Chelsea centre-back Andreas Christensen as the holding midfielder in the two legs against Napoli testament to that. But La Masia graduates Fermin Lopez and Lamine Yamal offer even greater hope for a future which already looked bright thanks to Pedri and Gavi.
They won’t win the Champions League. But a tie against renowned flakes Paris Saint-Germain offers the opportunity of a significant scalp for Xavi, who won’t be short of offers from elsewhere if he is true to his word and leaves Barcelona at the end of the season. Liverpool are apparently interested.
Team to watch: Bayer Leverkusen
Far more English football fans will be tuning into West Ham’s game on Thursday to watch their opponents rather than David Moyes’ side. Having seen off Dusseldorf in the DFB-Polkal semi-final on Wednesday to keep them on course for the treble, Bayer Leverkusen produced yet another dramatic comeback against Hoffenheim on Saturday to retain their unbeaten record.
With second-tier Kaiserlautern to come in the cup final and just two points required to win the Bundesliga title, it likely falls on the Hammers, or Leverkusen’s subsequent Europa League opponents, to deny them a treble all football writers are required to describe as historic.
It would be though. In claiming three gongs in one season, Xabi Alonso will double the trophies the club has won in its history. It’s no wonder he’s such a coveted manager, and also no great surprise that having built such an extraordinary team, he’s decided to snub the advances of Liverpool and Bayern Munich to remain there for at least another season.
Player to watch: Bukayo Saka
Now only shy of Theo Walcott (17) and Olivier Giroud (13) with 11 Premier League goals against the Big Six, Bukayo Saka is Arsenal’s big-game player. He got three goals and four assists in five group stage games and converted his penalty in the shoot-out win over Porto. The concern ahead of the visit of Bayern Munich on Tuesday isn’t Saka’s ability, but his fitness.
Having pulled out of the England squad last month, Saka missed the win over Luton on Wednesday with a muscle injury, but was rushed back to face Brighton on Saturday. “I was struggling,” Saka said after the game. “But as long as I have two legs I will give everything – I want to be on the pitch.”
It shouldn’t be his call, and Mikel Arteta has been criticised for his use of Saka, who played 48 of their 49 games last season, and is on course to play more this term. But it’s understandable.
Arsenal without Saka often doesn’t feel or look very much like Arsenal, and though this Bayern side are inconsistent at best, if they perform at a level befitting the players Thomas Tuchel has at his disposal, Mikel Arteta will need his difference-makers, and Saka has proven time and again that he’s that guy.
Bukayo Saka is Arsenal’s big-game player.
EFL game to watch: Leeds v Sunderland
While one point separates the trio at the top of the Premier League, the Championship title race is relatively humdrum with two points between Leicester at the summit and Leeds in third.
Leicester beat Birmingham last time out, while Ipswich lost the Old Farm derby to Norwich and Leeds lost to Coventry – rivalries which could be reignited in the play-offs for either of those sides, who will finish the season close to the 100-point mark but will inevitably lose to the sixth-placed side at Wembley. We don’t make the rules.
Jobe Bellingham scored the winner in the return fixture at the Stadium of Light in December, and Leeds boss Daniel Farke is wary of opposition teams feeling like “every game is a cup game” against his side despite mid-table Sunderland not having much to play for. “I’m at my best when the sea is getting rough,” Farke added, ahead of a round of fixtures which could see them one point clear at the top or four points off automatic promotion with Leicester away at Millwall and Ipswich at home against Watford. Rough seas indeed.
READ: Championship winners and losers
Phil Foden is master of the small spaces and player of the season
On April 1, the Football Writers’ Association emailed its members to announce that voting for this season’s men’s and women’s Footballer of the Year award had opened.
Last year’s men’s selection was easy; Erling Haaland was breaking scoring records for the soon-to-be Treble winners in his first season in England. The year before, Mohamed Salah was the outstanding candidate, claiming the award for the second time.
This year is different. There is no 40-goal scorer. No vintage, injury-free season for a Salah or a Kevin De Bruyne. No Premier League newcomer taking the top flight by storm. The FWA don’t mandate a shortlist of candidates; members are at liberty to select whomever they desire. But their email included a rundown of six suggested frontrunners – two from each of the sides currently locked in a three-way title race. A firm argument could be made for each, but still none stood glaringly above the others.
Then two days later, Phil Foden scored a hat-trick.
READ: Phil Foden makes our Premier League team of the season so far
The writers – like the fellow pros voting on the PFA’s own version of the award – must resist being prisoners of the moment and allowing one stand-out recent display to disproportionately colour a season’s work.
But this wasn’t a run-of-the-mill hat-trick, if such a thing exists; this was not a case of a player filling his boots at the tail end of a lopsided victory. This was a player delivering for his team in a high-leverage situation, against high-calibre opposition. And it was the continuation of a trend.
Foden scored his treble in a 4-1 win over Champions League-chasing Aston Villa, by some measure the trickiest fixture any of the title contenders faced that particular midweek, with Arsenal having already beaten Luton and Liverpool set to face Sheffield United the following evening.
It was Foden’s second hat-trick of the season, after one registered in a 3-1 away win at Brentford in February, and it showcased the full gamut of sharpened scoring skills that have seen him reach a career-high single-season return of 21 goals for the campaign already. The first was a free-kick struck from 20 yards, the second a powerfully driven finish from inside the box and the third a spectacular 25-yarder into the top corner.
“We needed him today,” Pep Guardiola said post-match. “I said a few weeks ago, this is his most influential season in terms of goals and assists. When we play simple, he can be more aggressive and he has the pleasure of scoring goals, he’s a threat when he’s there. How he runs for the team is exceptional.
“He loves to play football. When you see players playing in the street, he has that culture. He loves to play… in terms of how he moves in small spaces and after, the impact [in the box], he has the feeling, ‘Oh, he can score.’ You have to be aggressive. I’ve seen few like him.”
That City’s quest to retain the Treble they won last season is still alive at this late stage despite lengthy absences for De Bruyne and Haaland is in large part due to Foden’s versatility and maturity as both scorer and creator.
His tally of 21 all-competitions goals is already higher than City’s second-top scorer from last term, when Julian Alvarez scored 17. It is the highest by a second-ranking scorer at the Etihad, in fact, since the 2019/20 season, when Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus each scored 23 goals behind Raheem Sterling’s team-high 31.
Foden’s scoring output has helped compensate for Haaland’s drop in productivity this season – through a combination of injury and the occasional three-game drought, the lab-created goal-getter has only scored 30 goals in 36 games this term. And with De Bruyne missing so many games, Foden has stepped up creatively, too. Only Julian Alvarez (eight) has provided more Premier League assists for City this season than Foden’s seven.
For years now, there has been debate over the England star’s best position – is he hindered by being stuck out wide too often? Should he play as a No.10? But, as his performances and productivity this season have shown, it doesn’t matter where he plays; only what he does.
De Bruyne’s half-season injury lay-off afforded Foden more opportunities to play centrally, and his Villa hat-trick was plundered from a central attacking-midfield starting position. But he can, and does, play regularly and equally effectively from the left or right of the second line of City’s attack. His man-of-the-match two-goal display in last month’s Manchester derby at the Etihad, for example, saw him start on the left wing.
Wherever he plays, Foden is a master of small spaces. Whether moving outside to inside from the flanks or inside to out as a No.10, he has finely tuned the art of sliding laterally to find space between the opposition’s lines of defence and midfield and present himself as a target for forward passes from deeper midfielders.
His street-honed close control and deceptive upper-body strength allows him to corral the ball and hold off defenders. His low centre of gravity enables him to pivot goalward and open yet more space for himself and his colleagues. And in the attacking third he possesses sharp speed over short distances to break in behind backlines and a low, hard shot across the goalkeeper and into the far corner that is becoming a trademark.
This version of Foden is the realisation of the potential he flashed when he led England to the Under-17 World Cup in 2017 and as a teenager taking his first steps into a star-studded City senior team.
According to Fbref.com, Foden ranks in the 98th percentile among attacking midfielders and wingers in Europe’s top five leagues across the last year when it comes to goals per 90 minutes. He is in the 95th percentile for shots per 90, the 92nd percentile for non-penalty expected goals, the 90th percentile for assists per 90, the 85th percentile for expected goals assisted and the 90th percentile for touches in the opposition’s box.
By almost every metric used to measure the performance of the best players in his position, he is among the elite of the elite.
This is a level of play he always had in him. The scary thought for City’s rivals is that it is far from his ceiling. He is still only 23.
Foden’s importance to City this season is such that it is now best judged by the games he doesn’t play. Guardiola took his reigning Treble winners to Selhurst Park last weekend for a fixture with serious slip-up potential – City had won just two of their previous five games against Crystal Palace. De Bruyne started. As did Haaland, Rodri, Ruben Dias and John Stones. But with a Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu just three days later, Guardiola felt he couldn’t risk his key man. Foden was rested.
Foden has been everything City have needed him to be and more this season. He’s been the best player in the Premier League. He gets my vote.
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