How good will Rooney be when he matures?

At twenty-three, it is unlikely that we have yet seen the best of Wayne Rooney. Much will be expected of him this season because of the high profile departures from Old Trafford and because a World Cup looms large at the end of the season.

His club manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, has told Sky Sports that he believes there is a lot more to come from the player and that he doesn’t expect him to be at his best for another couple of years.

“There will be an expectation about Wayne Rooney this season purely because he is English. Without question he is the main striker that England’s hopes will be pinned on at the World Cup, so that is where the expectation is all coming from. But I would like to see the boy develop his game in a lot of departments. He is 23 now. You will get the maturity when he gets to 25. Then there will be a more consistent nature to his game. A lot of players go on little runs of scoring three or four in a row, then they have a couple of weeks off, come back and score five in a row. Wayne has periods like that. He has a little bit to do to get rid of it. That is where the maturity side has to come into it. He has the hunger and the natural ability to do a lot of these things. All he has to do is show the maturity to get there.”

The slight lack of total enthusiasm shown by Sir Alex in those comments tends to support the fact that after five seasons with the club, Rooney has still failed to establish himself as the main striker of the team.

Success

He joined United in 2004 from Everton in a deal worth £25.6million. He has enjoyed great success with the Old Trafford club but has often played out of position to accommodate other strikers in the team such as Dimitar Berbatov and Carlos Tevez. Towards the end of last season Rooney was being played wide whilst Cristiano Ronaldo occupied the striking role.

Rooney has a decent scoring record for United with ninety-seven goals in two hundred and thirty-eight games. That record is particularly good when you realise he has rarely played as an orthodox striker. Last season he managed twenty goals in forty-nine games and in his four seasons at the club he has never played less than forty-three games and never scored less than seventeen goals. That is a fine record of appearances and goals for any young player.

Goalscorer

His twenty-four goals in fifty-two international games for England shows that he is a goalscorer and since Capello started to play him as an out and out striker, he has bagged nine goals in five games. If he remains fit, he is already a certainty for Capello’s England side at Germany 2010 if they qualify as expected.

Rooney is well regarded throughout the world, has a good scoring record at club level and a very good one at international level. He is one of England’s best players and definitely their best striker. Despite being only twenty-three years old he has been playing at the top level for seven years and has played at European Championships and the World Cup and has winners medals in the Premier League and Champions League.

Dodgy

Some of the dodgy temperament that he has displayed from time to time is largely in the past although he will never lose some of the snarling nastiness about his game. He is an experienced player who regularly produces the goods for club and country.

I find it surprising that Fergie is still talking about Rooney lacking a little maturity. He clearly didn’t trust him with a striking role at the business end of last season and I wonder if he will do so this season even after the departures of Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Essential

I truly hope that Rooney gets a decent run as a striker at United this season because if England are to have the remotest possible chance of any success at the World Cup, a motivated and goal scoring Wayne Rooney is absolutely essential.