Working out precisely what happened between Wayne Rooney and Sir Alex Ferguson towards in the end of last season is a baffling task. Although Ferguson subsequently claimed Rooney had demanded a transfer, there were rumours about a year ago that Ferguson felt he was past his best and had begun to investigate the possibility of selling him, whispers that took on a more serious aspect when Rooney was left out of the starting line-up for the second leg of Manchester United's Champions League last-16 tie against Real Madrid. Twelve months on and it seemed to signal the completeness of Rooney's triumph that his new contract was signed in the week of the last 16 of the Champions League.
There is frustration from United fans at Rooney who has again, with his representative Paul Stretford, managed to manipulate the club into a huge deal in the second last year of his contract, but there is also a question to be asked as to his value, particularly given how he dominates the position behind the centre-forward and, as a result, seems to prevent Shinji Kagawa or Juan Mata ever playing in what might be considered their natural position at the front of midfield.
That wouldn't be such a problem but for the perception that Rooney plays far more as a second striker than he used to. Certainly it's true that when he started playing as a number nine for United in 2009-10 it had a detrimental effect on England, who had qualified for the World Cup with him playing in the middle of three in a 4-2-3-1 and found that by the time of the tournament he was playing too close to Emile Heskey, either unwilling or unable to modify his game to drop deep again.
The feeling, often expressed, that Rooney has played too high this season, almost alongside Robin van Persie, though, isn't true. He may not forage quite as deep as he did when he first emerged a decade ago, but he's actually done more defensive work this season than in any season since 2009-10 when he was first used as a central striker.
A glance at the heat-maps shows from a positional point of view that he is dropping as deep as he has for five years, while working all the way across the pitch (in explanation, there were games in 2009-10 when he was used on the left, which at least in part explains the bias that way in the heatmap for that season).
The statistics back up the impression. Rooney has scored 10 goals and registered 9 assists from 20 Premier League starts this season. He's probably not going to beat the 27 goals he scored in 2011-12, but he should beat his best of 11 assists, set in 2010-11. But what's really striking is his defensive statistics. This season he has registered 1.0 tackles and 1.0 interceptions per game. Of players who play in a similar central creative position, only Oscar (2.3 tackles and 0.2 interceptions per game) regains the ball more often this season.
More than that, those figures hold up well when compared to Rooney in previous seasons. Last year he made 0.7 tackles and 0.5 interceptions per game, the year before 0.6 and 0.4. Defensively this is his most effective season since he changed position in 2009-10.
That doesn't seem to have impinged on his creativity, though. This season, Rooney is averaging 2.0 key passes per game. He did go up to 2.1 in 2010-11, but otherwise this is his most creative season since that 2009-10 shift in position. What's baffling is that United's passing through central areas in the final third is still significantly down on two years ago: the implication of that is that Rooney is being asked to do too much, that he is having to drop deep and still be the main creator.
That should change with Mata to support him - if Mata can settle into the wider role - but the evidence so far suggests that Rooney, far from easing off or being the source of United's problems, is being asked to carry them.
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