Wayne Rooney may have been absent when Wolfsburg drove the final nail into Manchester United’s Champions League coffin on Tuesday and also missed the previous defeat at PSV in the opening group fixture, but that makes him no less culpable for the embarrassing early exit which has left everyone at Old Trafford reeling.
The rigid style of play demanded by Louis van Gaal has certainly done nobody any favours, but Rooney’s complete lack of form this season has had a defining impact on United having lost much of their edge, even though he has been afforded countless allowances as the club’s captain and icon.
Save for his hat-trick against a disappointing and increasingly desperate Club Brugge in the Champions League play-off tie, Rooney has regularly failed to create any sort of danger for opponents whether playing as a main striker or off the shoulder of the front man as a No.10.
He is constantly on the back foot whenever a 50/50 ball is there to be competed for, suggesting the extra yard of pace lost in the body has not been sufficiently compensated by a sharpness in the mind. If Van Gaal is pinning his hopes on the 30-year-old to help United through their difficult patch, as currently appears to be the case, then it would seem he is backing the wrong horse.
Rooney has netted a total of 237 goals for United, but the days when fans filling local pubs before matches at Old Trafford would chant his name long and loud, comparing him to Pele, have long gone. Look for videos of such instances on YouTube and you’ll find they are anything between four and eight years old.
It seems to be an indisputable fact that Rooney’s best days are done, but the question now is what can be done with him. In the short term it might well be the right option to overlook him for the foreseeable future, but even if that proves to be a profitable move that leaves United with a need to decide on a longer-lasting course of action.
At £300,000 a week, his is the fattest pay packet at Manchester United, and any hopes of offloading him will be severely restricted by the three-and-a-half years which they are contractually obliged to continue paying him so handsomely. There is talk that Everton would be interested in bringing back a player with the club in his blood, yet the finances simply don’t add up.
Jose Mourinho, meanwhile, made a big play to tempt Rooney to west London upon his return to Stamford Bridge two years go and although he is understood to remain a big admirer of the England skipper, having had his fingers burned with Radamel Falcao, and Andriy Shevchenko in the past, an ageing Rooney is unlikely to be the man he will look at in order to revive his own struggling Chelsea foward line.
It is normally when United are at their weakest that Rooney looks to cash in by extending his stay with the club, but the days when he held the trump card are long gone. His form has been nothing short of abysmal, while worrying rumours coming out of the club have suggested his wayward off-field antics of years gone by have begun to sneak back into the equation once more.
He currently stands just 12 goals shy of Sir Bobby Charlton’s record of 249 for Manchester United yet he has never looked less likely to usurp the World Cup winner. United may be fast approaching decision time on the future of Wayne Rooney.
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