Pat Nevin believes the lack of intensity and speed shown by Wayne Rooney on the field of late justifies Jose Mourinho's decision to drop him from the Manchester United starting XI.
The England captain was left out of the team that thrashed Leicester City 4-1 on Saturday and ex-Chelsea and Everton winger Nevin had previously suggested it was time Mourinho made such a decision.
While, Pat doesn't feel dropping Rooney solves every issue, the ability to increase intensity is one benefit he sees.
"I don't think they're a way better team but certainly it's seem so obvious now when we talked about it before and everyone was saying 'there's no intensity about the team,'" he told Off The Ball.
"You need to have energy. You need to have legs in the team. If you look at the top of the league just now - City, Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool - they're all quick, they're all fast, they're all high intensity and in the end you can have Ferrari type players but don't have a Skoda engine inside it and Wayne's a bit like that just now.
"Juan Mata's not full of legs either but certainly he will chase and do everything he possibly can and I just feel that Wayne had come off it a good bit. You come up against teams that are really up for it, you're not going to be able to keep on going at them and there were just too many players that were just not quick enough together as a group."
Pat feels it is now impossible to leave out the younger, quicker and higher energy Marcus Rashford who has been delivering the goals, and the former Scotland international was also surprised Mourinho waited so long to drop Rooney.
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