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Moyes: “No plans to rest Wayne”

Rooney v Leverkusen.Wayne Rooney produced another match winning performance in the 0-5 hammering at BayArena setting up 4 of 5 goals scored by Manchester United. Without a doubt, he’s been the standout performer this season so far with 8 goals and 15 assists in 17 games. That tells you he’s directly/indirectly involved in 23 of Manchester United’s goals this season so far. That number of assists is more than Ozil (Assist-king), Oscar, Hazard and Eriksen COMBINED.

Quite astonishing when you look back at the summer when almost every paper in and around England reported his desire to move out of the club questioning his commitment to the club and the crest. He certainly proved many of us wrong – especially our old boss Sir Alex by showing he’s fit enough to start and play every game to the best of his abilities.

If one player in our team can make Van Persie’s absence in the match day squad look insignificant, it could only be this man. So, David Moyes in recent weeks has heaped praise on Wayne Rooney and rightly so. Rooney’s commitment, fitness and above all the aggression that he brings to the pitch, is lauded almost in every press conference of his. Talking about fitness and consistency, there’s a point when every player hits a rough patch. Remember Robin Van Persie’s dry and barren spell last season from December to February? Rooney will have to face it someday. We will have to face it someday. But Wayne is a tad different to the rest in our squad. He is the kind that gets better with games. As Sir Alex said, If Wayne takes a break, he loses that niche and takes three or four games to get back to that level he was in.

It seems our current boss shares the same view. He wants to get Wayne playing as many games as he wants to keep getting good results and his own figures ticking.

He said, “He is a boy who continually gets better in the games he plays. The point I am making is that I want to keep him playing as well as he is doing. If he keeps doing it I don’t need to worry.”

As we know Rooney was not very happy with Sir Alex, shunting him out to the midfield several times last season largely due to the rampant run of Robin Van Persie. Rooney, though was not playing as bad as say Anderson in the midfield (who is a midfielder, funnily), he wanted to get his goalscoring boots back. This season, Rooney played up top with Robin every game they started together and in his absence, Rooney shoulders all the responsibility by taking the set pieces himself, a trait he has mastered and still is improving game by game this season.

Moyes, addressing this has appreciated the striker’s efforts in Carrington or well, the AON training ground this season. Rooney’s constant efforts alongside coach Steve Round to work on his free kick technique has reaped rewards, with him scoring 3 free kick goals in the league already. And the corners as well are taken by him and he looks to have improved them as well – notably that assist to Robin Van Persie in the crunch tie against Arsenal claiming 3 vital points.

Moyes said, “He works with (assistant manager) Steve Round on his set-pieces just about every day. He takes his time about it. Technically they are trying to look at how they can do it even better. But it is Wayne. It is his enthusiasm”.

Yeah. It is his enthusiasm that is paying off. With the Bobby Charlton’s all-time scoring record well in his sights, Wayne Rooney could win over the fans completely, if he could put his pen on paper and sign the extension (possibly his last) and earn himself a well-deserved testimonial next year.

 

Aashish Murali. (@ginger_prince28)