The master plan for Wayne Rooney this season was to be Manchester United’s main man. Louis van Gaal would play him as the centre-forward, the focal point, and the team would revolve around their captain, who would better his career best of 34 goals, the tally in each of his previous two seasons as a No9.
How did we know this? Because on the summer tour the manager and his on-field general lined up to say so. After the opening match in Seattle, a 1-0 victory over Club América in which Rooney played as a central striker but failed to score, the Liverpudlian was keen to state the case.
In 2009-10 and 2011-12 Rooney had totalled 34 goals. He said: “That was the last time I really played the full season as a striker.
“All the other seasons I have been up front, then in midfield or out wide so hopefully if I stay up front then I can get near that again. I have no doubts in myself. I have no doubts that I can do that again and I am ready to take on that mantle again and be the one who gets the goals for this team.”
Eleven matches into the campaign and Rooney’s count stands at five goals. Three were against Club Brugge, Belgium’s second-best side last season. One was against Ipswich Town of the Championship in the Capital One Cup. There has been only one in the Premier League. This came moments into the second half against Sunderland and ended Rooney’s drought in that competition on 999 minutes.
That was on 26 September, at Old Trafford. Rooney has not scored since. His last goal away from home in the Premier League was in a 2-1 victory at Arsenal last November. The hat-trick at Brugge provided his first goals from open play, away from home, in the Champions League for four years, since a 2-0 victory at Schalke in April 2011.
Ineffectiveness has been the recurring theme of Rooney’s season.
Having been ruled out of England’s victories over Lithuania and Estonia in the Euro 2016 qualifiers by an ankle injury, his last action was an unconvincing turn in United’s 3-0 humiliation at Arsenal.
He ended the contest shunted out on the left, as Marouane Fellaini came on and operated in Rooney’s trequartista role. His slide from fulcrum to man-on-the-periphery was complete.
Anthony Martial’s headline act as United’s central striker had shifted his captain from No9 to No10 before the side arrived in north London. A hamstring problem for Rooney prompted Van Gaal to start Martial up top for the first time at PSV Eindhoven on 15 September, and the Frenchman continued the dazzling play he had shown when waltzing through Liverpool to score on debut as a substitute in a 3-1 win that Rooney was absent from. When the 29-year-old returned to the lineup at Southampton on 20 September Martial was retained by Van Gaal, and Rooney told to operate at No10. The teenager scored twice.
In ending on the left at Arsenal, Rooney had been peripheral by position. It mirrored what appears a subtle shift in status. As Van Gaal’s captain he is the sole United footballer afforded “special privileges”, which means Rooney starts unless injured or suspended. Yet whether in games, on the training field, or around Van Gaal, Bastian Schweinsteiger’s influence continues to grow. The midfielder has the manager’s ear, and is quickly becoming his key lieutenant.
During matches Rooney is no longer a shoo-in to take a 25-yard free-kick, a penalty – Juan Mata scored United’s last – or to be the driving force or go-to man. These roles are filled by Schweinsteiger and Martial. One is a 31-year-old who continues to be plagued by injury (his latest is a thigh strain), the other a 19-year-old who is the most exciting prospect to join since an 18-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo in 2003.
To listen to Martial is to hear a young starlet whose soaring talent is unfettered by cares, as was Rooney when he arrived at United in 2004, having terrorised defences for England at the European Championship that summer.
“Playing for France is a childhood dream come true so I’m simply trying to enjoy it as much as possible. I have no pressure. The coach tells me to play my game, not to put any particular pressure on myself, and that’s what I try to do – and that worked pretty well in this match.”
These were Martial’s words following a fine full debut for Didier Deschamps’s side in Sunday’s 2-1 friendly victory over Denmark, during which he created the chance for Olivier Giroud’s opening goal. Rooney’s carefree days are long gone. He will be 30 a week on Saturday, the day before the Manchester derby when Manuel Pellegrini’s side make the trip across town. A player whose Premier League debut came at 16 seems to have been written off countless times in a 14-season career.
History suggests Rooney may go on a goal-rush starting at Everton on Saturday.
Yet Goodison Park is no happy hunting ground. In nine Premier League appearances stretching over 789 minutes Rooney has only two goals and one assist there.
This term’s solitary league goal – in seven games – is hardly consolidated by also having created zero goals in the competition. But Rooney is the record scorer in the Manchester derby. In the 170th staging of the fixture, he would hope to add to his 11 finishes.
Whether at Everton or against City, Rooney needs to kickstart his season. This would halt the drift to the margins. It would restore Rooney as the team totem Van Gaal identified when making him leader and this year’s centre-forward.
The Dutchman can be ruthless. He proved that by allowing Robin van Persie to depart for Fenerbahce in the summer, 12 months after he had been Van Gaal’s Holland captain at the Brazil World Cup.
Special privileges or not, Rooney will know he has to begin delivering consistently.
