Manchester United: Wayne Rooney Leads a 5-Star Bid for New Success

The noisy neighbours have thrown down the gauntlet. Chelsea are up and running and so are bitter enemies Liverpool.

Sir Alex Ferguson has already said that the Premier League is getting tougher to win and the signs are that, as usual, he is dead right.

We saw in the Community Shield victory over Manchester City that Ferguson can still count on hunger, desire and without question inspiration and excellence from his squad—that whole attitude of mind mirrored in the determined way West Brom were overcome in the first game of the team’s title defence.

But it is going to be a tough old grind if there is to be no 19th nervous breakdown. Given the absence of skipper Nemanja Vidic for the next five weeks as well as that of Rio Ferdinand for at least the Tottenham game and with Javier Hernandez also missing at least another fortnight there are five players who have to be on the ball to ensure the ball keeps rolling in what may well become Manchester United's toughest domestic challenge yet—and with Barca waiting down the line.

WAYNE ROONEY

The chaotic and indeed Quixote first half of last season transformed itself into another example of why Ferguson never blinked an eye over paying £27 million for him, and why during those trouble days when it appeared that he was on the way out of Old Trafford, the manager looked almost stricken.

Rooney withdrew the transfer request, got his £200,000 a week—the market rate for someone of his ability, actually—and became one of the central figures of the push to new glory.

Had United been able to rely on similar quality from elsewhere when it came to the Champions League final, then even a second winner’s medal may have been within his grasp.

There is a growing maturity about Rooney. He will need to show that quality in the coming months for he is one player United cannot live without if they are to kick on and, especially, conquer Europe again.

DAVID DE GEA

Ferguson is right to remember that when Peter Schmeichel arrived in 1991 he “screamed like a pig” over the treatment he got at the hands of the old Crazy Gang of Wimbledon most especially, yet he didn’t throw goals away.

De Gea is, without question, a major young talent but he has not impressed in the two major games he has played. He looks too young—he is only twenty after all—and maybe he IS too young.

Yet he signed the contract. He accepted the responsibility. At Old Trafford, they don’t exactly go light on them in training and the days of the Crazy Gang are long gone.

Goalkeepers are far better protected by referees now.

The problem is that with goalkeepers, it is very hard to have an old head on young shoulders. What is to be hoped for him is that he does not become another Taibi.

Ferguson has taken a huge gamble on him—worth far more than the £18.3 million outlay to Athletico Madrid. It is to be hoped that de Gea can live with the pressure—not just of how much he cost, but how much he holds in his hands.

PHIL JONES

It is certain that he will be heavily involved far earlier than he or his manager anticipated when he was first signed from Blackburn Rovers a couple of months ago.

Personally, I think he is an Old Trafford captain in waiting. Perhaps the one, down the line, who takes over for Rooney, who will surely get the arm band once Nemanja Vidic ultimately goes.

Jones is younger than de Gea and as a centre back, he also has huge responsibility but outfield players can make mistakes and get away with them, goalkeepers almost never have such a luxury.

The 19 year old showed in the Community Shield as a second half substitute that he has the capacity to be one of the giants of future United but with Vidic’s injury, his physicality will be crucial to the opening stages of his new side’s campaign.

He needs to come through an examination that will not daunt him but one that may come just a tad too early for him, but my guess is that he will come through it anyway.

ANDERSON

Push has come to shove for the Brazillian. Yes, he can pass it; yes, he can put his foot in; and his attitude in some games is in the affirmative too.

However, consistency has not been one of his more enduring qualities. There are times when he looks like he is playing on a different planet, unfortunately as the only inhabitant.

There were sure signs following his recovery last season from surgery on his knee that he has got the message that industry and endeavour are also the marks of a craftsman, not only art.

The midfielder has to express more dynamism, more devil—Red Devil if you will—to prove that he is the real deal and that his manager has been right to stick with him and in what will be the most demanding season of his mercurial United career, that new dimension has to be shown pretty much ASAP if he is to fulfil the role Ferguson envisaged for him.

Michael Carrick, good though he is, fails to make the fab class. So, too, does Darren Fletcher for all his industry. Tom Cleverley already looks a better bet than either of them and Anderson is running out of time to truly prove himself as a true samba man, and not just an habitual wallflower...

DANNY WELBECK

With Javier Hernandez still out, Dimitar Berbatov at times almost a spectre of his old, fantastically stylish self pre-Old Trafford and with Michael Owen very much a squad member, Welbeck has to show that he has what it takes.

He is a Longsight, Manchester boy, steeped as much as most of the squad in the tradition of United and you can just tell by the way he runs, by the way he tries, that he puts his heart and soul into what he does in a red shirt.

Having had loan spells at Preston and then all last season with Steve Bruce at Sunderland, being as well thought of as he is by the England hierarchy, and having been shown so much faith by Ferguson, his time is now.

So far, however—and I know we are talking about a striker who is still only aged 20—he has not exactly been prolific. In 62 first team appearances for the three clubs he has played for, he has scored 13 goals.

Not terrible but not Chicharito, either. In 64 league appearances for Guadalajara the Little Pea netted 26 times and last season he got 13 in 27 games in his first English campaign, even if he is three years older. Welbeck has to start producing. Just being a committed worker can’t be enough for a United side going for everything or for his own United future even if that work rate is to be admired.