Jose Mourinho Has Found an Effective Role for Wayne Rooney at Manchester United

Jose Mourinho might just have found a useful role for Wayne Rooney at Manchester United. If the club captain can be convinced that a squad rotation role is the best way to preserve his United career, he could become something akin to the asset Ryan Giggs was in Sir Alex Ferguson's last couple of seasons at Old Trafford.

Giggs started 19, 14 and 12 Premier League games in Ferguson's last three seasons, making six, 11 and 10 substitute appearances, respectively.

Of course, he was a good deal older then than Rooney is now. However, Rooney has been a first-team regular since he was 16 years old, and nothing about his career would suggest he has had the same kind of obsessive dedication to physical professionalism that Giggs consistently displayed.

It might be difficult to convince Rooney that not being in the starting XI is in his best interest, but the evidence is beginning to stack up.

Mourinho has been receiving a good deal of criticism lately for the job he's done at United. Of course, the league table makes unpleasant reading, but one of the unequivocal positives has been his handling of his captain.

Some historical context is needed here to make sense of his decisions. First, there is the fact that as Ferguson was leaving the club, he appeared to be nudging Rooney out the door with him. Rather than accepting Ferguson's implied take that Rooney's time at the top was over, David Moyes instead awarded him a massive contract.

That contract is central to the argument that Mourinho has been artful in his management of Rooney. At the time of its signing, the BBC reported it to be worth £300,000 per week in wages until the end of the 2018/19 season.

While it's hard to think about that decision without a baffled, slow shake of the head, given there was already some evidence of Rooney's decline at that point, it is nonetheless the hand Mourinho was dealt. It's the hand Louis van Gaal was dealt too, and his approach was to make Rooney captain and crowbar him into every starting XI come what may.

That yielded little fruit. The excellent performances he put in under Van Gaal can be counted on one hand. It was, in fact, one of the Dutchman's most egregious errors.

For some reason, it looked at first as if Mourinho would be continuing the pattern.

Rooney started the first six league games of the season. He got assists against Southampton and Hull—the latter being a fine piece of play—and a goal against Bournemouth, but he rarely looked sharp and certainly looked nothing close to his best.

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Mourinho's decision not to exclude Rooney from the start makes total sense in the context of that contract. If he immediately benched Rooney, none of the game's elite clubs would be interested in him anymore.

From a financial standpoint, finding some way of getting a tune out of United's most expensive instrument was vital. 

The losses to Manchester City at home and Watford away gave Mourinho a window of opportunity to drop Rooney. If he had feared some kind of backlash from supporters, none came. Indeed, as the Red Devils scored four goals in the first 45 minutes of the post-Rooney-as-automatic-starter era, he was not missed at all.

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Since then, that scoring rate has slowed down to a trickle, and a combination of injuries, suspension and poor form have allowed Rooney a route back into the side. He has started three of the past five games in all competitions, scoring twice and providing three assists.

Those are inarguably good numbers, but in the early part of the season, decent numbers belied unimpressive overall performances. This has been different. He did struggle away against Fenerbahce, the first of those three starts, but his superb goal at the end of that game marked the start of this upturn in form.

His reward for that goal was his first league start since September against Swansea on November 6. Swansea were kind and generous hosts, and United had it pretty easy. But Rooney was in decent nick. He made three key passes, of which two were assists, and was involved in the build-up to all three United goals.

He attempted six dribbles and was successful with three of them, and he completed 59 of his 68 total passes. He also contributed two tackles and two interceptions to United's defensive cause as part of the pressing unit formed by the Red Devils' forward line.

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Zlatan wants to help Rooney break Bobby Charlton's goal record and says the striker deserves more respect (PA) pic.twitter.com/Ka83IBxviz

— Man Utd Videos ⚽️ (@ManUtdVines) November 25, 2016"

That is the hard data. From a more subjective perspective, he just looked a good deal fresher. He seemed to move more freely with more in the tank. He's obviously lost a lot of speed in the last few years, but there seemed to be more explosiveness in his sprints than there has been of late.

The rest apparently did him some good.

Following a controversial international break, he was out of the starting XI against Arsenal at Old Trafford. However, he came on just before United made their breakthrough and looked pretty sharp again. He was unable to make a telling bearing on the game, but it was one of the more lively cameos he has given off the bench.  

Then came Feyenoord, again not a particularly impressive opponent, but Rooney was excellent nonetheless. Rooney, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Juan Mata made for a flexible front four. He matched Mkhitaryan for energy, if not for speed, and his goal and assist were well deserved.

Indeed, like Mkhitaryan, he could perhaps have considered himself a little unlucky not to feature from the start against West Ham United in the league.

In truth, though, the key to Rooney's better form is found in his lack of starts. It would be great to have reams of physical data available to prove this point beyond argument, but this is one of those times when the subjective tells us almost as much as the objective would.

He has looked fresher and more effective when he has played because he has played less. His movement has looked faster and freer, he has been less laboured, and his decision making has seemed a little sharper too. All logical consequences of a less demanding schedule.

Of course, the real tests for the Mourinho-Rooney relationship lie ahead. The captain appears prepared to give his all in a reduced role for now, but it would be fascinating to know what his view of the current situation is.

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Does he think he is biding his time until his manager sees sense and reincorporates him as an automatic starter? If so, then a conflict is looming at some point in the future. Because in truth, this should be the start of his late-period-Giggs-equivalent era.

This should be the beginning of a period in which he expects a number of league starts in the low teens and double figures of substitute appearances.

This should be the beginning of a period in which his manager calls on his experience and guile in big European games where the pace will be less intensely demanding, where he is crucial squad cover and an inspirational figure to younger players.

It will be intriguing to see whether Rooney's wiring allows him to make that transition. The early evidence is positive, and so far, Mourinho is handling him just right. But this story has a long way to go before it is played out.

Advanced data per WhoScored.com.