Ever since the departure of the world’s greatest player Cristiano Ronaldo from Old Trafford, Manchester United have been on an agonizing downward spiral. Agonizing for the fans that is. Our haters have, as one would imagine, gleefully rubbed their hands and spared no effort in using the opportunity to pick on us and bring us down all over the world. That we are just caught up in transition seems to be of zero relevance to them. But the real reason for me being so irate about it is that it also involves one of England’s and probably the world’s greatest centre forwards – Wayne Rooney.
For as long as he and Ronaldo had that outstanding partnership at United, nobody could speak a word about his ability. So they chose his hairline as their topic of interest instead. Liverpool fans were more concerned about how much hair Rooney had (or didnt) on his head when they were having their greatest title challenge in two decades. Arsenal fans seemed to have lost all worry about their trophyless cabinet and Chelsea had completely forgotten what ‘balancing the books’ meant.
And then came the day. We had been so hopelessly optimistic that we’d keep him from Real’s clutches for atleast a couple more years. But leave United he did, and along with him, so did another of our star players at the time, Carlos Tevez. We had fallen into an abyss. Our whole strike force, considerably weakened, depended on only one world class player, Wayne Rooney. Berbatov is a good player in his own right, but could never have filled and carlos’ and ronaldo’s boots or played as well as Rooney did.
But nevertheless, Roo never backed out, never took the CR7 route, which was undoubtedly the easy out. He chose to stay, and, in a frustrating trophyless season, scored 34 goals, his best ever aggregate. But yet, somehow, his critics still found the cheek to put him down. And thats when it all went wrong for him. His shameful romp was revealed. He wasn’t a 100% fit when he was taken to South Africa and flopped there as well as on his return to Old Trafford, culminating a total emotional breakdown that would have eluded only a robot.
His making a great song and dance about not being played against his boyhood club Everton and his transfer request threat were all tactfully brushed off by Sir Alex. And that left only one option for him, to make up for all the hoopla by proving that on the English grass, he was still the top marksman. He was brought back into the line-up at a time when Chelsea were faltering and Arsenal were not exactly giving United a stiff chase at the top, which meant the pressure on him was considerably lessened, what with Chicharito having a dream debut season and Berbatov justifying the money that Glazer reluctantly handed over to rope him in from White Hart Lane.
And then it was back to normal, Rooney came into some good form and playing behind the poacher Hernandez scored a few goals as well set up some for the ‘little pea’. But his long road to redemption and forgiveness from the Old Trafford faithful was completed when he gave them an exhilarating win at the Manchester derby in old trafford late with a goal that was later to be named the best in 20 years of the premier league. Even when United were beaten soundly at Wembley, it was Roo who pulled back a goal for us before Messi and Villa completed the rout.
Going into the 2011/12 season, he was overfowing with confidence which showed in two mind-boggling freekicks partnering new man Young against Arsenal which was immediately followed by another hat-trick at Bolton, who were eventually relegated. But as usual, Wayne Rooney was never allowed to achieve success for too long and an embarassing penalty miss against Chelsea in a 3-1 win triggered off a super lean patch for both United and Rooney that included a 6-1 loss at home to City.
As the Champions League exit and League Cup exit added to the ire of the United supporters, Rooney and United started finding form back with the return of the “ginger prince” Scholes, who orchestrated a midfield which was lying in a hospital bed throughout the season even as City crumbled with the absence of their captain Kompany to a suspension and midfielder Toure to the African Cup of Nations.
Rooney was instrumental in United’s stunning comeback which saw them overturn a 5 point deficit into an 8 point lead. But his younger clubmates namely Rafael, Jones, and the captain Evra crumbled at the back and committed unforgivable schoolboy errors towards the fag end of the season which saw United doing a City, dropping all the 8 points in the last 5 matches and losing the title on goal difference in the last minute of the campaign.
And yet again, United’s failure largely outweighed and overshadowed a stellar season for Wayne Rooney, who managed a repeat of his 2009/10 season and the blame fell almost entirely on his tired and over burdened shoulders, leaving him to keep hoping that one day United would find another playmaker and he can go back to heading in corners instead of whipping them in. Who knows? Maybe Kagawa. Maybe Powell even. One can only hope along with Wayne Rooney, United’s future highest ever goalscorer.
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