Did Rooney Peak Too Early?

 
Wayne Rooney: One of the Premier League greats

Wayne Rooney is one of the greatest players in Premier League history. The scorer of the 2nd most goals in league history and Manchester United's highest goal scorer. Rooney's career was glittered with accolades and records being broken and he has certainly established a legendary reputation. But should he have finished with a greater Premier League legacy?

Rooney's career was magnificent. The depth of his reputation is difficult to put into words but simply no player has ever scored more goals for Manchester United (253) or England men's national team (53) than him. Perhaps he was at his brilliant best when he won PFA Player of the year in the 2009-10 season after scoring 34 goals for Man United.

That season Rooney was only 24 years old and already had 3 Premier League titles to his name and a Champions League title. By the time he had his career-best league scoring season (with 27 league goals in 2011-12) he had 144 goals in the Premier League by the end of that season. He was only 26 years old and seemed like his best years were still ahead of him.

It looked as if he was bound to break Alan Shearer's Premier-League all-time goals record but he ended up 52 goals short of Shearer's benchmark.

Here is a graphic I made to depict the former Man United ace's goal scoring exploits:

Rooney's career in Numb3r5
by William Okafor-Oregan

Why did he decline early?

Rooney enjoyed the best years of his career between 2009 to 2012, where he hit the 20 goal-mark in the league twice in three seasons. Rooney ended up playing in the Premier League until the summer of 2018 so within this time frame he needed to score an average of 20 goals over the next six seasons to eclipse Shearer's goals record. But after 2012, he struggled to kick on from his career-best goals return. 

He never scored up to 20 league goals in a single season again which coincided with a major drop in performance level from his club as a whole. This was as long-time manager Sir Alex Ferguson had retired at the end of the 2012-13 season, when United won their last league title to date. 

Man United had never finished below 3rd place during Rooney and Sir Alex's time together but after 2013, United had finished 7th, 4th, 5th and 6th in the table until Rooney left at the end of the 2016-17 season. It seems a world away from the Man United team that stormed their way to five league titles in seven years leading up to this.

Picture from These Football Times.co

Not only this, but it was clear that Man United's teams weren't as lethal at scoring goals in the years after Sir Alex's retirement. Man United had scored at least 78 league goals or over in the final four years of Sir Alex's time at the club, when Rooney enjoyed much of his prime years. But in the four years after, they never scored more than 64 goals in a season. Also scoring as low as 49 league goals in 2015-16.

In Rooney's illustrious United career he had never had a squad that was this goal-shy and the chopping and changing of managers during this time couldn't have helped much either. Notably, Man United went through four managers in as many seasons: David Moyes, Ryan Giggs, Louis Van Gaal and Jose Mourinho. There was much criticism in the media of the lack of positive results for a number of these managers despite spending massive sums of money over a number of transfer windows.

The lack of stability had a negative impact on Rooney's scoring form for arguably the rest of his time in the English top-flight. Rooney had scored 44 league goals in his final four seasons as a Man United player, averaging 11 goals a season in this time. The United legend then scored 10 goal league goals for Everton the following season; his last in the Premier League.

Picture from Sky Sports.com

Another key reason is Rooney's role changing during his later years at United. He was deployed in midfield regularly under Van Gaal, who appointed the Englishman captain in 2014. At this point Rooney's once blistering pace and strength that made him a force to be reckoned with, had already began to fade away. So his exquisite passing range and technique was prioritised as he played much deeper in the team's formation and therefore was tasked with helping create goal-scoring chances rather than putting them in the back of the net.

To summarise, it can be said that Rooney's decline was sped up because of the deteriorating form of the team so soon after Sir Alex Ferguson called time on his managerial career. Or perhaps the revolving door of managers had unsettled him or that they were unable to utilise his finishing the way his previous manager could. But what can't be mistaken is that even without Shearer's goal record, his legacy is not in any way tainted. He is still the only player to ever score 200 goals and record 100 assists in league history.

A lethal goal machine in his early years, a Premier League legend forever.

(Lead Image Credit: William Okafor-Oregan)