Former Manchester United striker, Wayne Rooney has urged manager Erik ten Hag to “cheat a bit” against Manchester City in the FA Cup final next week.
Rooney says only a major “gamble” will see Ten Hag stop City from winning a possible Treble.
Pep Guardiola’s men are hoping to take a significant step closer to emulating Sir Alex Ferguson’s legendary class of 1999 against the Red Devils next weekend at Wembley.
It will be their second trophy this campaign, after they pipped Arsenal to the Premier League title.
But Rooney feels Ten Hag needs to shake things up and take a leaf out of Jose Mourinho’s book if he is to cause an upset against City.
Rooney told The Times: “I’d try something similar to a tactic José Mourinho sometimes deployed in his first spell at Chelsea, where he would get the likes of Joe Cole, Arjen Robben and Damien Duff to take up ‘half’ positions where they didn’t come all the way back and defend when Chelsea were out of possession but instead cheat a bit and wait higher up the pitch in areas from which they could counterattack as soon as Chelsea won the ball back.
“We always found it difficult to play against. When you were attacking, you were thinking, ‘Where’s Robben? Where’s Cole? Who’s staying back? What’s the communication like to make sure we’re dealing with those players?’
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