32 Greatest footballers in the history of the English Premier League - Part 29
9. Wayne Rooney:
When the Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo left the English club to follow his “dream” and joined Real Madrid after a record 80 million pounds transfer, another player had to take his job of scoring goals and making all
the creative goal scoring opportunities of scoring goals. With Ronaldo gone there was only man who could replace him and it was the Englishman Wayne Rooney.
The Red Devils were fortunate enough because they had an outstanding talent with them already; the talent was their striker Wayne Rooney who was being over shadowed by Cristiano Ronaldo throughout the last season. Luckily, for
Sir Alex Ferguson, Wayne Rooney capitalized on the opportunity that he got after the “removal” of Ronaldo from the squad and after the Portuguese man’s departure he took over as a “one man army” at the theatre of dreams, the Old Trafford.
With Manchester United missing out on the Portuguese winger, Cristiano Ronaldo, they wanted someone to score goals for them and it was Wayne Rooney who helped the English side in scoring the goals that they needed. The Englishman
scored 34 goals in all competitions for Manchester United and showed the world that he was the man to “watch out” as he was a total threat to all of Manchester United’s opponents.
Compared to the last Premier League season, 2009-2010, Wayne Rooney never was an outstanding goal scorer for Manchester United. However, he did find a comparatively good goal scoring form during 2006-2007 season when he managed
to score 23 goals in only 44 appearances. Out of those 44 appearances, Rooney only started in 30 games.
Rooney had a year’s time to get in line with his team mates for scoring goals. Ronaldo was gone and it was all up to him to take care of the team by giving some outstanding performances. In only 12 months everyone saw how he improved and started scoring goals
for the Red Devils. He got more freedom in the centre of the field as he was played as a “lone striker” with Ronaldo out and his job was now simpler. He only had to improve his finishing skills rather than his crossing ability which he focused on during his
time with Ronaldo as he often played as a left winger back then.
Rooney became the focal point at Old Trafford and showed vast improvement in all the departments. His heading ability along with his off-the-ball runs improved drastically and with the help of his “aggressive” runs and power he
managed to get away from his marker and became a constant threat to the opponents.
With Ronaldo in the team, Rooney often featured on the left flank or the right flank while Berbatov or Tevez would be the ones in the centre. However, this time things changed and Rooney came in the centre with the legendary Ryan
Giggs on the left and the Portuguese winger Nani on the right. It was obviously Sir Alex Ferguson who actually changed Rooney’s prospective and helped him become a predator inside the penalty area. Everyone in the world saw the “drastic” change in the Englishman
as he started to put his name on the score board more than just “usual.”
The journey from being an assist maker to scoring great goals started for the Englishman and the season kicked off with a match against Chelsea as Manchester United faced them for the Community Shield. It was Wayne Rooney who scored
the first goal for the Red Devils and showed his “great” goal scoring form to everyone. After scoring against Chelsea, he scored 6 goals in the next 6 Premier League games and showed great form throughout the start of the season. The 6 goals he scored included
the goal that helped Manchester United win against Arsenal.
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