That Man Rooney

Wayne Rooney slips into form as quickly as it deserted him with a hat-trick for Manchester United against Club Brugge. Adam Bate wonders whether football fans will ever know quite what to make of the England captain…

He ranks among the top three goalscorers in Premier League history. Only two men and 17 goals stand in the way of him becoming Manchester United's all-time record scorer. As for the England goalscoring record, that should fall rather sooner. A couple of tap-ins against San Marino next week will take Wayne Rooney to 50 goals for his country.

So it's with some bemusement, you might think, that Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal should not only intimate that he might consider Marouane Fellaini a creditable alternative, but that there'd be people willing to go along with it. And yet, that's what the sight of an out-of-form Rooney can do to people.

It can be a tough watch at times. The sight of another ball played into Rooney's feet, ricocheting away from his control as quickly as it had been fired in his direction is not a pretty one. Not without reason does Rooney inspire that illogical debate of whether we are witnessing the best bad player ever or the worst good one.

Perhaps, as he walked away with the match-ball in Belgium after his Champions League play-off hat-trick sealed United's return to Europe's main table, we should simply settle for world class. After all, this is what Rooney can do. More often than not, he's been doing it for well over a decade now.

The first was a delightful dinked finish after letting the ball run across his body. It was not the strike of a player who'd gone more than six hours of football this season without a goal, but then, hasn't that always been the way? In form as quickly as he'd been out of it. As Van Gaal said afterwards, Rooney has the ideal mentality to keep on coming back.

The second was stroked home with the goalkeeper stranded – courtesy of the sort of service he'd been waiting for, delivered by Ander Herrera. And the hat-trick was completed soon after with another intelligent run in behind seeing him latch on to Juan Mata's prodded pass. Suddenly, Rooney is United's top scorer once more.

If all three chances were presentable, Rooney will be grateful for Javier Hernandez's late cameo, complete with fluffed penalty and skied sitter, for the reminder that this sort of thing is rather harder than it looks. Is this a good time to remind people that young pretender Harry Kane has gone six competitive games without a goal himself?

No matter. With this latest questioning of his qualities coming with Rooney approaching his 30th birthday, it seems inevitable that the England captain will depart the stage before he's convinced everybody of his talents. But here were three more reasons why that exit won't be happening imminently.

A better striker will come along at Old Trafford one day. But it wasn't Radamel Falcao, despite his vast reputation, and even Robin van Persie was outscored in each of the past two seasons. Burly Belgians and Mexican poachers need not apply. Wayne Rooney just keeps on keeping on. He always does.

Credit: Skysports.com