Their playing styles are very different, but the Manchester United striker has many years left to emulate the great Brazilian
Wayne Rooney is not the new Pel�, whatever the week's headlines made it appear Sir Alex Ferguson had said. What the Manchester United manager did say was in response to the Benfica coach's suggestion that Rooney was like a South American striker, and Ferguson even disagreed with that. "He's a typical British player," he said, somewhat mystified by Jorge Jesus's remarks. "But if you look at Pel�, for instance, he was a very aggressive attacker who could also look after himself, and so can Rooney. There are similarities in terms of strength, speed and determination."
Let's hear it, then, for all the other typically British attackers who by virtue of being aggressive and able to look after themselves must also be a bit like Pel�. Alan Shearer, Mark Hughes and Kevin Davies, for starters. All right, perhaps not Davies, though it is hardly the Bolton player's fault that the job of leading most Premier League lines has largely gone to foreign imports.
That is one reason why Rooney stands out. He is the main man for United and England, as synonymous with this country's brand of football as Bobby Charlton in his pomp. He may not be as jaw-droppingly inventive as Pel�, and he is extremely unlikely to end up with anything like the same World Cup haul, though it is important to remember that the brilliant Brazilian's fame was based almost exclusively on his World Cup performances. Every four years he would come round like a comet, then for the most part disappear from European view.
Rooney's career to date has been just the opposite. A long list of medals and astounding success at club level interspersed with anticlimactic World Cup campaigns where expectation has far exceeded achievement. However, and this is the area in which Rooney's contribution to the game may eventually stand comparison with Pel�'s, the United player may not yet be halfway through his career. At 25, he has been around for what seems longer than nine years, and without even assuming the longevity of Ryan Giggs, it is possible to suppose he can continue at a high level for at least that long again.
"It's funny," Ferguson says. "In terms of the group Wayne is now a senior player. If you can see a new maturity in him that's probably why. He's older than most of the players around him and much more experienced. But he's only 25. So he's still a young player with a lot ahead of him."
John Terry, leader of a Chelsea team who mostly have to think hard to recall their mid-20s, was saying exactly the same thing a couple of weeks ago, pointing out that Rooney could have another 10 years with England left in him. If that is true, and it does not seem unreasonable, he could certainly last that long with United.
Almost exactly a year ago that would have appeared a dangerously large assumption: Rooney's private life was on the front pages, he was at odds with his manager over the extent of an ankle injury, had just been left out of the United side at the cost of dropped points in a 3-3 draw at Everton and was about to tell his club that they could not rely on him signing a new contract. But if United ended up caving in to his wage demands and going out of their way to keep him happy, there is a feeling they are about to be rewarded by one of his most prolific and convincing seasons.
Two hat-tricks already in a season only four games old is quite a start, and even if the 8-2 result against Arsenal was freakish and the 5-0 rout of Bolton evidence that Owen Coyle may be in for an uncomfortable season at the Reebok, the way Rooney and Javier Hern�ndez tormented the England centre-half Gary Cahill suggested they could do the same to just about anybody.
Ferguson is likely to start the pair in tandem against Chelsea on Sunday, after only bringing Hern�ndez on in the closing stages of the 1-1 draw in Lisbon in midweek. The United manager claimed he would not mind losing at home to his biggest rivals as long as he could win all the other games and still finish champions, though that is not how he tends to set out his sides.
Though United are more familiar with Chelsea than any Premier League opponents, they are to some degree an unknown quantity under Andr� Villas-Boas, and Ferguson is not about to gift the new boy an easy start. Everyone at United and Chelsea still remembers the last time a relatively unknown Portuguese coach made a name for himself with an unexpected result at Old Trafford, though what Ferguson remembers most about Jos� Mourinho's Porto knocking the home side out in 2004 is that a legitimate Paul Scholes goal was chalked off for offside.
Villas-Boas will be greeted by United's strongest side, and while the inclusion of Antonio Valencia, Ryan Giggs and Park Ji-sung in Lisbon gives Ferguson options other than Ashley Young and Nani for wide midfield, there is little doubt that Rooney and Hern�ndez constitute the first-choice attacking partnership. Or that David de Gea will return in goal, a subject on which Ferguson has been most insistent all week.
"There is clearly a media agenda over our goalkeeping situation. It is as if everyone is desperate for the boy to fail," he says. "Anders [Lindegaard] was always going to get his chance, he has been patient and he did well. But De Gea has done well, too. I'm happy with both of them. Apart from his goalkeeping ability David's use of the ball on the floor is terrific too. We've almost got a sweeper there and that's a fantastic asset in the modern game. If you look at the stats from the Bolton game, I think his passes started seven attacks that ended up in their penalty box."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/sep/17/wayne-rooney-manchester-united
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