Exquisite Rooney gives hope to United and England
Daniel Taylor at Old Trafford
Monday January 2, 2006
The Guardian
"Goodbye and good riddance to Manchester United's annus horribilis." So says the front cover of the latest United We Stand fanzine, a publication that displays about as much seasonal goodwill to Sir Alex Ferguson as a snowball in the face. Ferguson will be glad to see the back of December, never mind 2005, although it would be wrong to say nothing has gone right when Wayne Rooney's family must be running out of scrapbooks to contain all the cuttings.
It is difficult for United's supporters to be too melancholic when in their midst lurks a player who by rights should have been sitting beside Ronaldinho at Fifa's global awards night, a footballer opposition fans taunt as fat but who in full flight looks as though he would not make footprints in snow.
Rooney, perhaps, is the single reason why the fans on Sir Matt Busby Way can regard 2006 with a modicum of optimism. He makes robust centre-halves look flimsy. He does things on a football field that cannot even be found on a computer game.
On New Year's Eve it was the turn of Bruno N'Gotty and Tal Ben Haim to feel the force. Ben Haim, an old foe, was substituted at half-time. N'Gotty traipsed off the pitch at the final whistle with the expression of a vegetarian walking out of TGI Fridays.
Sam Allardyce, the Bolton manager, shook his head as he floated the possibility that he might never have seen such a more capable demonstration of the centre-forward's trade. Rooney had bewitched United's opponents with a performance brimming with pace, strength, anticipation, guile and craft. Everything, in fact, apart from a goal. "He terrified us," Allardyce reflected. "I think I've just seen one of the most outstanding young players I've ever seen."
Bolton are no Barcelona but there was still something exhilarating about the way Rooney elevated himself to a different level. "It bodes well for England in 2006," said Allardyce. "He not only frightened us with his skill but his work-rate and his physical attributes. He was brushing off our players and some of his touches were just magnificent. You can plan all you want but when a player of his ability is in that sort of mood what can you do?"
Rooney has become so influential that opposition managers have started giving serious consideration to deploying a man-marker to stick to him like a tick. Bryan Robson of West Bromwich Albion was the first to use such a method only for Rooney to conjure up a 3-0 victory once his designated shadow, Paul Robinson, had left the field with concussion.
"We contemplated it too," said Allardyce. "But the truth is we didn't think we had a player capable of doing it. The concentration needed to man-mark a player of Rooney's talent for 90 minutes would be absolutely mega. We would effectively be asking someone not to get involved in the game when we were in possession and there isn't a player in our camp with the self-discipline and concentration for that sort of job."
One suspects there will be a distinct lack of raised arms should other managers ask for volunteers. Bolton's defenders were so flustered they began to make uncharacteristically simple errors. N'Gotty deflected Kieran Richardson's cross into his own net when it should have been a routine clearance. Gary Speed equalised with Bolton's first effort on goal but Ben Haim promptly sold Jussi Jaaskelainen short with a back-header and Louis Saha re-established United's lead. From that moment Old Trafford sat back and basked in the Rooney Show, supplemented by Cristiano Ronaldo's most productive match for longer than he would care to remember.
There was a kaleidoscope of moments to choose from but none more exquisite than the way Rooney bulldozed a route into the penalty area to set up Ronaldo's first goal. After the strength came the subtlety. Which other player in English football would have had the awareness and ability to flick the ball to the far post, using the outside of his right boot, when there was an orthodox left-foot shot on? Some observers were so dumbfounded they initially presumed he must have miscued his shot. It turned out to be the pass of a genius.
Ronaldo added a final flourish as the game went into stoppage time, drifting inside N'Gotty to score with a left-foot drive, but long before then Rooney had established a sense of harmony inside Old Trafford that has not always been there this season.
Flick through any United fanzine or log on to any chat-room and the criticism of Ferguson is unrelenting. It is difficult, indeed, to find anyone who is willing to advocate that he should stay beyond the end of the season. Yet the crowd serenaded him here with a chorus of Happy Birthday followed by "Sixty-four? You're having a laugh".
Convincingly beating Bolton does not mean United have eradicated the shortcomings that were so obvious during the wretched string of performances that passed as their European campaign. It does not make up for the fact that their season has, in all probability, descended into a contest with Liverpool for second place and automatic qualification for the Champions League. And it will not have United We Stand's editorial team fretting that they have gone over the top with their latest edition. Yet Ferguson, like Sven-Goran Eriksson, is blessed with a player whose very presence offers hope. If 2006 is another annus horribilis, it will not be Rooney grazing in the scapegoats' paddock.
