SOONER OR later Wayne Rooney is going to exhaust the pot of superlatives. The Manchester United striker has now scored 27 this season after another night in which he demonstrated a ruthlessness in front of goal that has not always been evident earlier in his career.
Two headed chances, two goals. West Ham’s defence were as helpless to prevent him as Milan’s had been in San Siro a week earlier and, in the process, Alex Ferguson’s team shook the 3-1 defeat to Everton out of their system and moved back within a point of Chelsea at the top of the table, albeit having played a game more.
A fit-again Nemanja Vidic returned to the team but Rio Ferdinand’s withdrawal on the night will be a concern for Ferguson, along with an injury for the returning Anderson.
But this was otherwise a satisfying, business-like win that incorporated a substitute’s goal for Michael Owen two minutes after coming off the bench. On this evidence, Rooney is now surpassing Didier Drogba as the choice for player of the year.
The hardest part for Ferguson is finding new words to describe Rooney’s burst of scoring form, but he summed it up nicely in his programme notes when he wrote “the hallmark of a truly great player is the ability to grab a game by the scruff of the neck”. Ignoring, for one moment, his goals, this was another demonstration of a player who makes things happen.
Rooney was a constant menace, always looking for the ball, even having the audacity at one stage to clip the ball in the air and try a dipping volley from 30 yards. The ball landed on the roof of the net and Old Trafford reverberated to the collective groan of knowing that they had just witnessed something so close to being truly special.
This is the most prolific form Rooney has shown since he burst on to the scene as a 16-year-old at Everton. He is more of a penalty-box player these days, sacrificing some of those roaming instincts that have driven Ferguson to distraction over the years. His positioning has improved, his appreciation of where the ball might come.
His first goal was a case in point. As the ball was worked upfield, starting with Vidic through to Park Ji-sung in midfield, Rooney was hanging on the line of West Ham’s defence. Park picked out Dimitar Berbatov on the left who switched play with a cross-field ball to Antonio Valencia. The pass was slightly over-hit, a little too fast, almost waist-high, and most footballers would have been content just to control the ball. Instead Valencia had the confidence to volley it straight across the penalty area. It was a sublime piece of technique and vision and it would have been almost impudent for Rooney, with a stooping header, to miss.
The breakthrough was out of keeping with an otherwise ordinary first half. Ferguson had made five changes from the side that lost at Everton. This was Ben Foster’s first appearance since the end of November while Anderson was also brought back, having been frozen out of the last seven games after a fall-out with Ferguson following the first leg of the League Cup semi-final against Manchester City last month.
It was a short-lived experience, the Brazilian injuring himself and being replaced by Park after 19 minutes, making his way to the tunnel with such a pronounced limp it was difficult to imagine him playing any part in the League Cup final against Aston Villa on Sunday.
The same concerns will also apply to Ferdinand after his withdrawal. He has only just returned after three months of rehabilitation from a back issue and England manager Fabio Capello must be concerned by the defender’s absence only eight days before he was due to captain his country in their friendly against Egypt.
West Ham acquitted themselves well in the first half and Foster came a couple of inches away from one of his horror moments when he dropped Alessandro Diamanti’s deflected shot on to his goalline as it fell from the skies.
But there was an obvious imbalance of talent and Park had struck the crossbar before Rooney flashed a 55th-minute header beyond the visiting goalkeeper, Robert Green, from another of Valencia’s inviting crosses.
Typically, Rooney did not look too pleased when Ferguson brought him and Dimitar Berbatov off with 12 minutes to go.
On came Owen to remind Old Trafford that he, too, still knows a thing or two about finishing. Paul Scholes, who controlled midfield alongside Darron Gibson, provided the killer pass and Owen, inside the penalty area, curled his shot in off the post.
Guardian Service
MANCHESTER UTD:Foster, Neville, Brown, Vidic, Evra, Valencia, Gibson, Scholes, Anderson (Park 19), Berbatov (Owen 78), Rooney (Diouf 78). Subs not used:Kuszczak, Rafael Da Silva, Jonathan Evans, Fletcher.
WEST HAM UTD:Green, Faubert, Tomkins, Upson, Spector, Behrami (Collison 63), Noble, Kovac, Diamanti (Dyer 75), Franco (Mido 46), Cole. Subs not used:Stech, Ilan, Da Costa, Daprela. Booked: Faubert.
Referee:Alan Wiley (Staffordshire).
