Ferguson: Rooney can hit 40 goals

Sir Alex Ferguson believes Wayne Rooney can reach 40 goals for the season and has praised the striker’s maturity.

Rooney has been in lethal form this season and already has 31 goals for Manchester United and England.

“He could get to 40 goals,” Ferguson told The Guardian.

“He has eight matches left, he can average a goal a game; you’d take that, wouldn’t you? We would reasonably expect eight more goals.

“Would he get footballer of the year? Well, you have to say that Van Persie has had an exceptional season.”

Rooney, 26, has been praised by his club manager for both his increased self-control and maturity.

“You always see a maturity about players when they reach their mid-20s,” Ferguson said.

“Along with their ability comes the thought patterns and timing. They are more in control of themselves in terms of what they are capable of doing.”

The United boss has seen titles both won and lost in his time at Old Trafford and described the pressure of a Premier League run in.

“You get nerves. You are in a football job and it’s your life and there is anxiety but not to the point that you get desperate,” he said.

“We lost the league in 1992 with four games in six days and to see your lead evaporate like that – it felt like it had disappeared within seconds.”

With this experience Ferguson conceded that a slip-up could well be around the corner and recalled the points tally he had predicted earlier in the season.

“There could be a shock around the corner now, you never know,” he said.

“We have done well in terms of getting into the position we are and now it is a case of playing our game and keeping our nerve.

“That is why I was so concerned in the last 15 minutes of the Fulham game when we kept giving the ball away.

“We won the league with 75 points one year – 1997 – and the year we won the treble we did it with 78. I still cannot believe that.

“Earlier in the season I thought 82 would do it but that won’t happen now, will it? That calculation has been stood on its head.”