Is Time Running Out for Wayne Rooney at Manchester United?
On Friday night, Wayne Rooney received a golden boot from Sir Bobby Charlton at Wembley Stadium before England’s qualifier against Estonia to mark reaching 50 international goals and overtaking Charlton as his country’s all-time leading scorer.
In front of a crowd of over 75,000, and with both teams lined up behind him, it should have been one of the most memorable and greatest moments of Rooney’s career. Yet, at the same time, he also managed to look like a shrunken and diminished figure out there.
In a strange way, standing next to Charlton with the award made Rooney look like yesterday’s man, a figure from history. It seemed like a reminder that he is no longer the player he was when he scored the majority of his half-century of England goals.
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While he is rightly lauded in international football for surpassing Charlton, back at his day job in the Premier League with Manchester United, he has quite obviously been struggling this season.
Back in July, before a ball had been kicked in this campaign, I suggested this could be Rooney’s final season at Manchester United, and since then, nothing has dissuaded me from this view.
The truth is Rooney has had a poorer start to the season than anyone could have expected.
On the opening day, I was at Old Trafford to see United take on Tottenham, and Rooney offered a stiff, slow and altogether unconvincing performance up front for United.
In the 22nd minute, Ashley Young found Rooney unmarked in the centre of the Tottenham penalty area.
The younger Rooney would have lashed home the chance with a one-time shot, but this older model paused, took another touch and was caught up by Kyle Walker, who inadvertently prodded the ball into the net before Rooney could get a shot off.
This moment has come to symbolise Rooney’s woes at Old Trafford in the first two months of the season.
There he was, stripped bare: indecisive, slow and ineffective. And since then, it has only gotten worse.
In the five league games that followed, he failed to score but was also alarmingly anonymous, particularly away against Aston Villa, a game in which he touched the ball just once in the opposition area.
On the eve of the new season, Rooney had been happy to be moved back up front as an orthodox striker in the No. 9 position.
United manager Louis van Gaal talked excitedly on Sky Sports about how Rooney would play in this position, and how he expected him to score as many goals as Sergio Aguero this season, between 20 and 25 of them.
But just six weeks into the season, these grand plans had to be ditched, and Rooney has been replaced as United’s No. 9 by 19-year-old Anthony Martial, a player Rooney admitted he had never even heard of before he arrived at Old Trafford on deadline day.
To accommodate Rooney, Van Gaal has had to move him back into the No. 10 role behind Martial, but the problem is he has failed to make any impact there as well.
He finally scored—a ricochet off his thigh on the goal line against Sunderland at Old Trafford—to break a run of 1,000 minutes without a Premier League goal, but there has been little else.
In the 3-0 defeat to Arsenal eight days ago at the Emirates, the game seemed to pass Rooney by.
While Martial provided a constant threat with his pace and ability to run at defenders, Rooney, whose experience should have bolstered and helped his charges, instead offered almost nothing.
Alongside the youthful brio of Martial and Memphis, Rooney looks increasingly old.
It was hoped Rooney could play the same guiding role for Martial and Memphis that Ryan Giggs did for him and Cristiano Ronaldo a decade ago, when they were entering their 20s, but it is yet to happen.
The recent BBC programme on Rooney fronted by Gary Lineker provided a reminder of what a special and rare talent he used to be, all that rage and muscle, all that power and craft.
The old footage of this Rooney was a joy to watch, but once more, it offered a stark reminder that this player hasn’t been seen at Old Trafford for some time now.
Rooney turns 30 at the end of this month, he has been playing professional football since 2002 at an average of nearly 43 club games each season, as well as 107 international games on top of that. That takes its toll.
If Rooney is not offering goals, assists, attacking thrust or even his experience to those around him, what purpose is he serving?
At the moment, it would appear it is only the captain’s armband keeping him in Van Gaal’s starting lineup. But for how long?
The United manager has shown little patience for players who are not contributing to his side, and Rooney must be concerned that he too could be dropped, in the same manner that John Terry, a title-winning captain only months ago, was at Chelsea.
If Rooney’s club form continues in this vein, it could also jeopardise his hopes of captaining England at next summer’s Euro 2016.
It would be premature to entirely dismiss Rooney, but he and Van Gaal have to find his purpose and role in this United side soon.
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