Five years back, Sir Alex Ferguson discussed over-reliance on Wayne Rooney and how it cost Manchester United the title. Rooney scored 34 goals in all competitions that season and second in line was Dimitar Berbatov with 12 goals, the same number of own goals that went in United’s favour. Rooney was 24 at the time.
Not many would have envisioned that two managers later, Manchester United would be undergoing the same problem. Are Manchester United still heavily reliant on their talismanic captain?
Granted the league is one match old, but Manchester United still lacked much finesse in the game. They were basically pretty mediocre and leading the line for them was captain Wayne Rooney who looked the most mediocre. He attempted two shots in the game and was largely uninvolved in the game. It was Rooney’s mistimed attempt to shoot, that led to the own goal by Kyle Walker.
As evidenced from the match (and cries of “it was just the opening game” are unwelcomed. I know that it was the first game) Rooney is not as quick as he was at a time, and taking into account the goal he missed, or the shot Walker latched on to, he is also not as deadly as he was at a time.
Don’t get me wrong. Rooney is still Manchester United and England’s most important player. This could be a massive compliment for the former Everton player who is definitely not the player he was two-three seasons ago; or could be regarded as a problem for the Red Devils. To try and assert a title challenge, he shouldn’t be the main man. The burden needs to be shared.
Louis van Gaal has spent a fortune and has got rid of all the deadweight, including £59.7m signing Ángel Di María. The present team is purely his team, it is his vision. There needs to be more tempo in the team, something which is supposedly part of van Gaal’s fabled philosophy (remember all the ‘long ball United’ debates?).
While the people behind Rooney – Depay, Mata and possibly Pedro – need to ensure the striker has enough service to feed on in addition to doing the job in front of goal themselves, the England captain needs support in the strike department.
Who is Rooney’s competition? Javier Hernandez, someone who doesn’t exactly show in van Gaal’s Real Madrid plans and James Wilson, still only 19. If the pre-season was anything to go by, Adnan Januzaj could be seen playing as a second striker. But Januzaj is also 20 and despite his swashbuckling form of 2013-14, cannot be relied upon.
While van Gaal has said that Rooney could fire Manchester United to the title by scoring more than 20 goals this season (and that United would be okay without buying another striker in this window), it must be noted that the striker hasn’t scored more than 20 club goals in a season since the 2011-12 campaign when he recorded a total of 35. And Manchester United didn’t win the title that season, as already pointed out.
That is why the purchase of Robin van Persie, when everyone was screaming for other positions to be addressed, was such a masterstroke by Sir Alex Ferguson.
Harry Kane and Thomas Muller were two of the linked strikers, but both look like they’ll be staying at their respective clubs. If Manchester United don’t go and buy another striker, and it looks more and more likely that they wouldn’t, they need other players to fill in with goals and for Rooney to get the targeted goals as well.
Rooney could still make a league-winning contribution this season, but for that to happen, the service behind him needs to get better. Depay should be used in his preferred role on the flanks rather than in the middle, where he looked so suffocated. Juan Mata, who was so effective in the second half of last season should be used in the number 10 role. If the club does get Pedro, the Spaniard most definitely should be used on the other wing. This could effectively mean the burden on Rooney is reduced as there would be plenty of creative outlets in the team.
It’s just been one game and not much can be taken from that. Most clubs were below par in the first game of the season and credit to Manchester United, that they still came out of it with three points. However, if the club wants to make a proper title challenge in addition to doing well in the Champions League as well as domestic competitions, they will need to get much better and ensure they are not heavily reliant on their captain, who will turn thirty in three months.
P.S: The article was compiled prior to United’s match against Aston Villa and nothing has been changed since.