Wayne Rooney just needs a goal: Sir Alex Ferguson
Manchester United manager shifted his focus towards his star striker Wayne Rooney, who has gone through 13 games without a goal for both club and country. Rooney’s last goal came in the UEFA Champions league match against Bayern Munich back in March.
It is very hard to comprehend what has happened to the player who scored 34 goals for United last season. Rooney’s performance was outstanding last season, making him the only player who represented the English Premier League in the European Club Player of the Year awards. The accolade is expected to be given out by UEFA in Monaco next week. The premier league representative is now goalless for 13 straight games for both club and country. The player had a disappointing World Cup campaign with England, where he featured in all the games, failing to score even once. A drained and lost Wayne Rooney was seen among the ranks in South Africa, who seemed frustrated and confused whenever he had the ball near his feet.
Wayne Rooney suffered some minor injuries towards the end of last season, hampering his form with Manchester United. The player’s current season, however, is disrupted by the lack of pre-season games, which he missed owing to the extended break following the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Prior to featuring against Newcastle United, Rooney has only played 90 minutes in the new Aon Shirt for United and just 65 while representing England against Hungary. Wayne Rooney can easily be singled out as the main reason behind United’s second place finish in the Premier league, following the departure of star players Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez. Critics believed that United wouldn’t be able to cope up with premier league following Ronaldo’s departure, but it was time for Wayne Rooney to step up. The player single handedly established himself above all, second only to Lionel Messi and former team mate Ronaldo. Scoring almost at will, Rooney became a force feared by all defenders and goal keepers alike.
However, according to England manager Fabio Capello, the English striker needs at least 600 minutes play time to reach his top form. If this estimation is true, a goal drought may be extended for the 24-year-old. Manchester United Manager Sir Alex Ferguson, being a former striker himself, completely understands what the England international is going through. The manager claimed that the longer Rooney takes to find the back of the net in a competitive match, the harder it would be for the striker to get his mind back into the game. However, Ferguson’s intimate understanding of strikers means that the manager knows that once Rooney finds the back of the net, everyone would forget his poor form.
"Strikers live by their goals,” claimed manager Sir Alex Ferguson. The manager added that Rooney’s situation is quite straight forward and he just needs a goal. Ferguson claimed that strikers who can’t score believe that they would never. However, when they do come up with one, they think they are never going to finish scoring. The manager therefore claimed that Rooney is no different from any striker and would only be a matter of time before the player finds his true form. However, the manager insisted that the 24-year-old only had 90 minutes of play before the Newcastle match which is too less for any player. Previously, Rooney would’ve featured in various matches in the pre-season, giving him less time to practice.
Dimitar Berbatov’s progress is easily pointed out, who missed the World Cup owing to the inability of his national side qualifying for the World Cup. The striker featured in most of the pre-season matches and has shown signs of improving. The player has scored in every match played in the season, including the incredible injury time goal against Chelsea in the Community Shield match. Berbatov opened the scoring for the club against Newcastle in the premier league opener, owing to an exquisite finish. So for Wayne Rooney, it would just need a single goal to get him back to his goal scoring ways.
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