Saturday 3 October 2015 13:01, UK
Thirteen years on from his first senior goal, Wayne Rooney is struggling for form and finds himself being outperformed by a teenager he’d not heard of a few weeks ago. Adam Bate looks at the challenge facing Manchester United’s captain…
Manchester United's 2-1 victory over Wolfsburg was their first in the Champions League proper in over 18 months. The club is top of the Premier League after a full round of games for the first time since Sir Alex Ferguson was in charge. Their captain should be bullet proof. Instead, the complaints about Wayne Rooney's form continue to grow.
Rooney had scored seven goals in his last seven games going into Wednesday night. But strikes against Ipswich's second-string and penalties against San Marino pad the stats. Indeed, it's tempting to think that tap-ins against Sunderland should immediately attract the attention of the dubious goals committee.
Something just isn't right. And when it's not right with Rooney, it's hard to miss. Certainly far harder than the first-half shot he mistimed against Wolfsburg, ballooning the ball over the bar after (what we dare now call typically) superb work from Anthony Martial. His new team-mate looked shocked but others are getting used to it.
The difference between Rooney's best and worst can be alarming. Even his biggest admirers are accustomed to that. But there's a feeling that Rooney is a man apart from the change that's currently happening to Manchester United's team when he should be at the very heart of it.
I have been saying for many, many press conferences that I want speed.
Martial's arrival is, of course, the most obvious catalyst for the change of mood. Along with Memphis Depay, this was the pace that Louis van Gaal had openly craved. "I have been saying for many, many press conferences that I want speed," said the Dutchman. But the acquisition was supposed to complement Rooney not displace him.
For the likes of the captain and Juan Mata, this was what they'd been missing. United's Subbuteo football was no more. Now they had players making off-the-ball runs and pulling defences out of position. With the youthful exuberance around them, the willing runners who would buy them space in which to work, the class could tell.
But while Mata has been elevated by this whirl of activity, Rooney only appears more sluggish by comparison. Where Mata is there to bounce the one-twos off to team-mates, Rooney rarely returns the favour. According to Opta, he misplaced five times as many passes as the Spaniard in midweek but created a fifth of the chances.
Martial's performances are already causing a shift in thinking. "I was expecting Manchester United to have signed a winger-forward," said Gary Neville. "But what they have actually signed looks like a No 9; someone who can lead the line, and, if he's not scoring goals and not running in behind, provide a point for attacks - and I never expected that."
I was expecting Manchester United to have signed a winger-forward. But what they have actually signed looks like a No 9.
Martial has taken some of the pressure off Rooney in terms of goals. In fact, he's already trebled his skipper's Premier League tally. As such, the 25-goal target established by Van Gaal on the grounds that Rooney will "play a lot of times in the striker's position" so "he has to prove" that he can score the goals can be revised.
But if Rooney is back in the No 10 position, the diminished goalscoring responsibility is replaced by a creative one - and that's a role he's often had an uneasy relationship with. Creative passing and precision incision are difficult skills and the indications are that as Rooney moves deeper his distribution remains much the same.
Against Wolfsburg, he picked up the ball in central positions around 40 to 50 yards from goal on numerous occasions. There were options ahead but Rooney's instinct is to pass the ball back - effectively holding the ball up as a striker might - rather than progress the attack. David de Gea received more of his passes than Memphis Depay.
Rooney's radar revealed the problem. None of his passes - successful or otherwise - were hit into the area ahead of him. By comparison, Mata played many passes in this zone. Nominally, Mata was on the periphery as a right-winger but in every sense that mattered it was Rooney on the edge of things when, as a No 10, he should surely have been playing these passes too.
So what happens next? It would seem the onus is on Rooney to forge a relationship with the rest of the front three, all of whom are outperforming him at present. In particular, the Martial partnership must develop. "I want to play with a first striker and second striker and maybe they are a very good duo together," said Van Gaal. "We shall wait and see."
United face a big run of games in the Premier League with trips to Arsenal and Everton preceding the Manchester derby at Old Trafford. If they remain top after that sequence then Van Gaal's men will have proven they have the ability to challenge for the title. History would suggest the trip to the Emirates should bring out the best in Rooney too.
The 29-year-old has scored more Premier League goals against Arsenal than any other player and he clipped home what turned out to be the winning goal in this fixture last November as United exposed the Gunners on the counter-attack. It was a memorable moment. Not least because he's not scored an away goal in the league since.
How Rooney could do with a repeat at the weekend. Thursday marks 13 years to the day since he announced himself by coming off the bench to score his first senior goals - a brace for Everton - against Wrexham in the League Cup. It was the performance of a precocious teenager and one that immediately made you question the wisdom that experience counts.
Now it's Martial asking that question of Rooney. The player who was signed to help him but who could yet oust him from the starting line-up. Rooney needs to come up with a response, as he so often has in the past, if he's to avoid feeling obsolete in Manchester United's new-look attack.
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