SOCCER ANGLES:The striker's showing against his own club raised questions of both form and fitness, writes MICHAEL WALKER

ON A muggy Monday night on Merseyside, Wayne Rooney had a red face and a hot head at his former love, Goodison Park.

But this was no St Valentine’s Day.

Rooney appeared to be, as they say, carrying some timber rather than flowers. Whatever the explanation, his form or his fitness, Rooney’s impact on the opening game of Manchester United’s season was scant.

Even in these days when rushing to judgment is viewed as some kind of virtue, basing an assessment of where Wayne Rooney is as he starts his ninth season at Old Trafford, on one game at Everton, could be considered alarmist.

Rooney, after all, has not done badly since swapping Everton for United. He has won four league titles, and only goal difference last season prevented it from being five. He also has a European Cup plus a couple of League Cups, and had one of his best seasons in red last term, certainly domestically, certainly in terms of scoring.

Accumulating 27 league goals in 32 starts is no mean feat and, even if six of them were from the penalty spot, Rooney finished the season 17 goals ahead of Javier Hernandez, United’s next highest scorer.

Rooney also scored the first and last goals of United’s Premier League season – at West Bromwich and Sunderland – having begun the campaign at such a clip he was on the scoresheet in the first five games. His tally was nine goals in that spell, United’s 21. They were top of the league until October.

This came after a summer when the main arrivals at Old Trafford were Ashley Young and Phil Jones – plus the return from loan of Danny Welbeck. When compared to Manchester City, United’s transfer business looked circumspect. When compared to this summer, it still looks that.

Yet Rooney thrived, and should do so again. In October he will be 27, always claimed to be a player’s prime, but the sluggishness of Goodison Park will need to be sweated off. That was Monday’s surprise.

And Rooney should be hungry for work. Three days before travelling to Merseyside, Robin van Persie became the stand-out transfer of the British summer, his move from Arsenal to United a serious message of intent from Alex Ferguson.

Van Persie followed Shinji Kagawa and with Welbeck and Hernandez already around, Rooney has the sort of attacking company in which he should revel. There’s Young, Nani and Antonio Valencia too.

It’s two years since Rooney publicly question United on that issue and demanded to leave the club. Rooney stayed following some most public persuasion from Ferguson (and United fans outside his house) and things got better. But there will be United supporters who will always remember his attitude – even if some of them shared the sentiment – and Rooney could do with a spurt of decent displays to ensure questions he posed in 2010 do not turn towards him.

Rooney has the ability to snuff concerns out, and he has earned months of patience with past performances, but those with an England aspect did not view Monday night at Everton in isolation. They immediately connected it to Rooney’s belated entry into the European Championships in the summer and particularly to his almost anonymous effort against Italy in the quarter-final.

England manager Roy Hodgson had granted his striker freedom to holiday in Las Vegas prior to Euro 2012 as Rooney was suspended for the opening games against France and Sweden. This decision became prickly after Italy because, while Rooney had scored against Ukraine on his return, his overall display was not compelling and there then seemed like a lack of energy against the Italians.

Both Hodgson and the player said subsequently that fitness was not in doubt. Similarly, should Rooney hit a dry patch, Ferguson will surely scotch any suggestions that he is not at a level of sharpness to connect with Van Persie and Kagawa; yet United’s 2012 began with a 3-0 defeat at Newcastle which came after Rooney had been fined by United for turning up for training in poor condition following a night out with Darron Gibson and Jonny Evans. That was one of the three league games in which United did not get a goal last season.

Given the attacking options Ferguson has now gathered, starting this season with another goalless game will not have been part of the plan.

So we can expect attack today, when Fulham go to Old Trafford for a rare three o’clock Saturday kick-off at the ground. Van Persie will be welcomed, as will Kagawa. Rooney should be in his element.

And Martin Jol’s team should know the score. Fulham were at the same venue at the end of March and lost 1-0. They know who got United’s goal.

Hold on there

HAS SOMETHING been done to the balls used in England, or are goalkeepers just getting worse?

Paddy Kenny's mocking of his replacement at QPR, Robert Green, stemmed from Green's unconvincing debut at home to Swansea last Saturday, a game QPR lost 5-0.

But Green was not alone: there were strange errors of judgment from Reading's Adam Federici in his opening two games.

In the second of these, at Chelsea on Wednesday, Petr Cech produced the type of easy spillage he seemed to have overcome.

For all their defending of Green, QPR are already looking for a new goalkeeper.

Scotland shows encouraging signs of life

IT IS to be hoped someone is writing an account of season 2012-13 in Scotland. The initial premise would have been to catalogue the first season in the Scottish game's "slow, lingering death" – as opposed to that fast, lingering death we all fear.

The slow death was as foreseen by the Scottish FA's chief executive Stewart Regan in July, as it dawned on the authorities that the grassroots of Scottish football were deeply against any structural consolation for 'newco' Rangers.

Yet as it stands, chapter one will need to be titled 'Signs of Life'.

Next Wednesday Celtic will be expected to seal their progression into the Champions League group stage having shown admirable composure at Helsingborgs last Tuesday. What had the makings of a troublesome evening was turned into a pretty smooth passage by the discipline of Neil Lennon's players.

Had Georgios Samaras been more generous with his passing close to the Swedish net, Celtic might have triumphed more than 2-0.

That was followed by Hearts' measured defiance against an admittedly makeshift Liverpool at Tynecastle on Thursday night.

Then there's Rangers. The men from Ibrox sort-of fulfil an ambition tomorrow by playing a league game in England.

The hollowness for them is that is at Berwick Rangers, who, although based in Northumberland, five miles south of the Scottish border, are in the Scottish Third Division.

But it will be packed, and the atmosphere is not expected to be funereal.