Rooney's upturn in form started when Martial went missing for a while. Rooney has been scoring important goals for the past couple of months.
Not really. He scored first in January after Martial destroyed Swansea's defence and assited
that goal.
It's too early to say whether and to what extent Rooney has turned it around. In terms of goals, he has done brilliantly over the last 5 weeks. But most of those goals came against teams from lower leagues (SU, Derby) or teams involved in the relegtion battle (Newcastle, Swansea). He was poor against Soton and Liverpool. All in all, he has put in two excellent performances (Newcastle, Stoke), 2-3 decent ones and 2-3 poor since the start of the calendar year.
I said before the game vs Newcastle that even if he scored three hat-tricks in the next three games, he would still be finsihed as a top player. And I stay by this. By "finished" I mean that he cannot maintain excellent perfomances for longer than 2-3 months and will inevitably slump into mediocrity for prolonged periods.
He looks lively and quality when he is given acres of space. But the real top players can control the ball in tight spaces and create something out of nothing (e.g. Martial). Rooney can't do this and as soon as we face a team like, say, Soton that leveas little space for the forwards, he will look out of his depth.
In order to thrive as a main striker at a top top club you have to be very good in tight spaces with an excellent first touch (unless your team neglects possession and relies on counter attacks), quick and physically very strong. Rooney's close control in tight situations isn't special, he isn't particularly strong or quick either. So, I don't see the tools that would help him to be consistently good for us over at least 2/3 of the season. He might go through some purple patches now and then but we need consistency in order to compete for the big tropheys. I'd be nicely and extremely surprised if he is still capable of such consistency. One month isn't enough, he has to deliver many months in a row.