Wayne Rooney

It would be unfair to suggest that the path has been cleared of all obstacles for Wayne Rooney ever since he burst into the bigtime as a 16 year old because it has largely been down to his own skill, power, drive and will to succeed that these obstacles have been cleared.

Since joining Manchester United, he has largely found himself playing second fiddle to others – Ruud Van Nistelrooy when he first arrived and then Cristiano Ronaldo in more recent times. That is not to say that he is in any way inferior to those players but such is his attitude towards the team that he has often been asked to sacrifice much of his own game in order to accomodate those players. He has always done this without complaint and to the best of his ability and this is just one of the many reasons why he is such a favourite amongst the fans, his team-mates and his manager.

However, with the departure of Ronaldo, Rooney was finally given centre stage and encouraged by Fergie to get himself into goal-scoring positions and be more “selfish” with his play. The result was typically devastating as Rooney enjoyed his most prolific season as a professional, scoring 34 goals in all competitions. The post-Ronaldo question of “Who will score the goals?” had been answered.

As ever, though, a similar question is never far away and when Rooney picked up an injury in the dying seconds of our match against Bayern Munich in the Champions League, the United attack suddenly looked a bit threadbare.

Michael Owen has himself already picked up an injury earlier in the season, Berbatov was still finding it difficult to score on a regular basis and young Macheda was himself struggling with an injury problem.

When Rooney came back from the injury, it all looked a bit rushed and he never quite seemed “right” to most onlookers but such was our reliance on him that even an 80% fit Rooney was probably better than anyone else at full fitness. If it was a gamble by Fergie then it probably backfired and we haven’t seen the real Wayne Rooney since he hobbled off against Bayern for club or country.

Seeing the problems with attack, Fergie wasted no time in securing the services of a young Mexican called Javier Hernandez for around £7million. An unknown young player for a relatively small fee (for a striker) didn’t give many United supporters much cause for excitement and many wanted us to be splashing uber-millions on the likes of Villa, Torres, Benzema or even, dare I say it, Forlan.

The signing of Hernandez has since begun to look very much like a masterstroke from left-field by Fergie though and even during his brief appearances in our pre-season friendlies, he has managed to score three goals for us (and one goal against us!).

Something else has happened over the summer, too – Berbatov appears to have regained his confidence. Despite showing moments of brilliance during his previous two seasons at United, these have been largely overshadowed by, let’s face it, prolonged periods of crapness. Some were even tipping him to be on the way out this summer and, clearly recognising that his personal legacy is about to be tarnished by the word “flop” (Berbaflop, in some quarters) he has seemingly resolved to give it everything in his power to make up for lost time this season and the result has been pretty spectacular in pre-season as he himself has scored three goals including yesterday’s calm, composed lob against Chelsea to finally put the match to bed.

And then we have Michael Owen who had not kicked a ball since scoring in the Carling Cup Final which ultimately cost him the rest of his season. Whilst likely to only be a bit-part player this season, he has managed to score a goal himself in pre-season (and a brilliant one at that) and continues to remind everyone that while the electric pace might no longer be there, the instincts and the technique of a master marksman are still there in abundance.

Add to this young Macheda who just keeps knocking in the goals to remind everyone who might be forgetting just what a talent he is and we have a five-man strike-force of fantastic variety that I honestly can’t remember such a situation at United. The nearest thing I come to by way of comparison (and forgive me if I’m getting carried away here) is the treble-winning side of 98/99 with Yorke, Cole, Sheringham and Solskjaer.

What all this means is that competition for places is as strong as it has ever been and each player will have to take full advantage of whatever chances Fergie gives them to stake their claim. Chances on the field will also need to be taken and if Fergie perceives a player to be giving anything less than 100% at all times then he might well find himself collecting splinters for a spell.

With all these players seemingly looking fit, ready and in goal-scoring mood as we enter the new season, the only one who has not scored a goal is Rooney himself. In fact, during pre-season, the team has scored a massive 22 goals in seven games with thirteen different players hitting the back of the net (including the loan-bound Welbeck).

We’re clearly not totally reliant on another 30+ season from Rooney but it does beg the question: Are we reliant on Rooney at all?

The prospect of a fit Wayne Rooney not playing is unthinkable but having seen the partnership of Berbatov and Hernandez yesterday, Fergie might just have a slight dilemma on his hands here. It’s a nice dilemma, and one he has been used to having down the years, but it is a dilemma.

Whilst we didn’t see a goal from Rooney yesterday, we did see the other things that he brings to the table, not least of which was the brilliant “blind” pass into Valencia for the opening goal. Not many players in the world would have done that and this only adds to the dilemma.

What is beyond doubt, however, is that Rooney now has a challenge on his hands. It is normally considered that he is one of the first names on the team-sheet but I just wonder if this is going to be the nailed-on case for much of the coming season, especially if the likes of Berbatov and Hernandez can take their pre-season form into the season “proper”.

Another thing that is certain is that Rooney relishes a challenge and he will be as up for it as anyone. What we will see from Rooney if he raises his game to yet another level in response to the challenge is almost too scary to contemplate.

Bring it on!