Why 15 Goals Is a Realistic Aim for Wayne Rooney in 2015/16 EPL Season
Wayne Rooney has accepted the burden of being Manchester United's main goalscorer this season.
Rooney said, on 20 July, per Mark Ogden of the Daily Telegraph:
"My best position, and I have always said it, is as a striker, getting into the box. And the two seasons I have really done that as a lone striker have been my two best goalscoring seasons. It is where the manager and myself see my best position.
Hopefully I can get a good run of games and repay the manager and score goals for the team, but it [pressure] is obviously on me to do that. I have no doubts that I can score 20 goals or more again and I am ready to take on that mantle and be the one who gets the goals for this team. If I play up there again this season, then I can get the goals.
It is where I like and it is where I will play.
"
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His manager clearly agrees, saying, per Chris Slater of Manchester Evening News, "(Rooney) is our striker. He is also the captain of the team so he shall play a lot of times in the striker’s position. Probably he has to prove it. I have full confidence that he shall do that."
The question of how many goals is a realistic target for Rooney is an interesting one, and one which is tricky to answer.
The first place to look is to history. He has scored a lot of goals in his time and, as has been discussed at length, looks a good bet to end his career as both his club's and his country's highest ever goalscorer.
However, for most of his United career he has been a consistent scorer rather than a prolific one.
The two seasons to which he refers above are the only two seasons in his career where he has managed 20 league goals. They are also the only two seasons in which he has served as an out-and-out No. 9 for the majority of his time on the pitch.
The first was in the season following the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo, 2009/10, when Rooney was without any doubt United's main man. He was in sparkling form, and it was only after he was injured that United's season went off the rails.
The next was in 2011/12, after Dimitar Berbatov fell out of favour and Rooney was reassigned goalscoring duty.
Sir Alex Ferguson's relative reluctance to use Rooney at No. 9 is a fascinating topic, one worthy of fuller exploration. Whether his manager considered Rooney too useful elsewhere, or whether there was something in his centre-forward play which Sir Alex found wanting, most of Rooney's time at United was spent elsewhere on the pitch.
Even though he had bagged more than respectable returns in both seasons in which he had led the line, he was immediately taken off centre-forward duty in the seasons which followed.
Berbatov was the man who was given that responsibility in the season in between Rooney's two best. After the second, Sir Alex splashed out on Robin van Persie, whose goals fired United to title No. 20.
With Van Persie—and Radamel Falcao—now gone, Rooney has to pick up the mantle once again.
History, though, is not complete proof that he will be able to repeat the trick of being prolific from an advanced position. After all, the last time he did so was three years ago, and three years is a very long time in football. Particularly the three years in which a player of Rooney's physicality goes from 26 to 29 years old.
Come October, he will be 30, and has an awful lot of miles on his metaphorical clock. Over the past couple of seasons he has put in his share of poor performances—games where his first touch lets him down, or his passing range is off. Reasonably often, though, even in those poor performances he finds a goal.
He did not play particularly well, for example, in pre-season against Barcelona. However, he got himself into just the right place at just the right time to start the scoring in that game.
Perhaps more recent history provides a better indicator of Rooney's prospects for the season ahead. It has been three years since he had a full season at No. 9, but he had plenty of games there at the back end of last season, and his return was unspectacular.
United played their best football with him up-front on his own, but Rooney did not score in the final six games of the season. There were a couple of those where he played a deeper role, but he had plenty of time at No. 9 in that spell.
His relative barren spell was not all his own doing. The team was not particularly functional for the latter part of that, and he did score against both Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa during United's peak run of form.
He was also clearly finding adapting to Louis van Gaal's instructions something of a new challenge. Van Gaal wants a positionally disciplined front-man, and Rooney, of course, has spent much of his career dropping deep to find space on the ball. The sight of him pinging a long pass to the right flank is a thoroughly familiar one for fans at Old Trafford.
Presumably, if he is going to spend the season as Van Gaal's line-leader, he will have to do less of that.
Rooney has become a divisive figure among the United faithful. There are those who believe he is misunderstood and scapegoated for failings beyond his control. There are those who believe his performances have slipped significantly, and who are dubious about United heading into the season with him as the primary goal threat.
A cursory glance at any United-related social media will find plenty of examples in both camps.
It is against this backdrop that he will have to prove himself again. Perhaps he should not have to, given how much of himself he has given on the field for United. But he has been given the captaincy by Van Gaal and now has prime responsibility for goals too.
Twenty in the league would be an excellent return for the season. For the past three seasons, only the Premier League's top three scorers have topped 20 goals.
Twenty goals in all competitions with 15 in the league might be a more realistic target for someone who has been away from line-leading duty for so long—and who has faced the ups and downs of form that Rooney has.
While that would be a manageable target, it would probably be a bit below par in terms of what United need. As Miguel Delaney pointed out in an article for ESPN.co.uk, "Since 2009, no team has won the Premier League without a primary striker who hit a rate of at least 0.67 goals per start."
United do have plenty of players who can chip in with reasonable goal hauls—Juan Mata and Memphis Depay in particular, assuming the latter can translate some of his Eredivisie form to the Premier League. However, if they want to compete for the title, Rooney will probably have to exceed his “realistic” goal and achieve a more challenging target.
Whether age and form will allow him to do so will be one of the defining stories of United's season in 2015/16.
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