SOCCER/ ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE:AS WAYNE Rooney signalled to the bench that he needed to depart the stage with an aching groin, a pessimist would have feared that two campaigns had died at once. Manchester United's mission to win a fourth consecutive Premier League title was disappearing under a tide of Chelsea goals and England's chances of winning the World Cup seemed similarly imperilled.
Half an hour later Rooney was back on the pitch with his baby son riding his shoulders. Kai Rooney now knows how popular his father is and what a mass protest looks like. Against a landscape of green and gold scarves and ‘Glazers out’ cards, Rooney Sr and his unsteady passenger drew the heat from a day of demonstrations that featured a smoke bomb outside the megastore and a shoving match at the directors’ entrance, which activists tried to breach while tossing Monopoly money.
As indignation coloured United’s final home game of a comparatively unproductive season, Rooney surrendered his hold on the Golden Boot for the Premier League’s leading scorer to Didier Drogba and United were obliged to accept a delay in their quest to win a 19th league title and ease one ahead of Liverpool in the all-time list.
“I think he’s aggravated the groin again. I don’t think it’s serious - he’ll be OK for England,” said United manager Alex Ferguson. But Rooney’s fragility since he sprained ankle ligaments in the Champions League quarter-final at Bayern Munich will worry Fabio Capello, the England coach, although he will be encouraged that Rio Ferdinand got through 90 minutes yesterday.
Rooney’s barn-burning zeal in the central goalscorer’s role kept United on Chelsea’s heels but supremacy has now shifted by a one-point margin back to Roman Abramovich and his west London Kremlin. United have responded once already to Chelsea’s power and now they must do so again.
A 4-0 win over the deeply unimaginative Stoke City would have been written up as a great defiant act had Chelsea not battered twice as many past Wigan. At the end of a programme in which people have dared to talk of democracy spreading, a couple of mid-to-low ranking sides were caught in the heavy fire between two great powers and the Premier League felt like a microcosm of our unequal society all over again.
Goals from Darren Fletcher, Ryan Giggs, Park Ji-sung and one in his own net by Stoke’s Danny Higginbotham reaffirmed an odd truth about United’s uneven pursuit of a 12th title in Ferguson’s 24 years in charge. Even without Ronaldo and Tevez they have scored 86 times to last year’s 68. Many United fans will say that losing home and away to Chelsea this term was the deciding factor but Ferguson refused to “agonise” over individual results and at the end told supporters from the pitch: “Next season we’ll go again and hopefully bring the title to the best place in the world.”
With rancour towards the Glazers spreading, United occupy parallel states. Stability on the pitch offers a sharp counterpoint to insurrection in the stands.
At most clubs unrest on this scale would flood the playing side but Ferguson remains adamant the money from the Ronaldo sale is available to him and has not been wired to the banks to repay interest on the club’s debts.
“Of course we’ll come back next year. That’s what Manchester United do,” said the veteran United boss.
Guardian Service
