True he's been playing horribly. You'd be stupid to disagree with that but my point is, he obviously still has the talent and the football knowledge to have a positive impact on the team
Didn't Giggs go through a bit of a dodgy patch in his late 20s, with the criticism he attracted spawning the infamous 'Sack Fergie, sell Giggs' meme?
But then Giggs went on to be an important player for us for nearly another 10 years, albeit with reduced playing time.
The obvious difference, people will say, is that Rooney is no Giggs in a physical sense. And perhaps they are right.
But as with Giggs, this little bad patch doesn't
necessarily mean he's finished as a player who can contribute to a successful Manchester United for a few years yet.
Like Giggs and Scholes before him, a clever manager could find a way to maximise his combination of experience and talent - and yes, he has it in abundance - so that his influence is a net positive one. On the pitch and off the pitch. We'll see, though.
It's possible he'll be shipped out at the end of the season, signalling the proper end of the Fergie era for me*, and the start of a bright new dawn . . .
(I thought it was interesting that, despite their well documented differences, Rooney recently
described Fergie as 'the greatest manager of all time'. I'm wondering if he's only just starting to realise how good he had it under Fergie, now that Fergie is gone).
I guess Martial and Memphis are the future now, and if they can go on to be as good as Rooney and Ronaldo, we're laughing. If they can go on to be better - as a partnership, and for Manchester United specifically - the sky is the f*cking limit.
