Wayne Rooney
Unsurprisingly, Wayne Rooney is our player of the month for August. While Cristiano Ronaldo settles in with his £80m price tag, conversely it is on Rooney’s shoulders that this £80m responsibility has been shifted to – the task of becoming less sidekick and more leading light comes with extra pressure when the terms “world player of the year” and “most expensive player ever” are bandied about.
There are plenty of United fans however who always believed Rooney to be the brains of the operation, the true heartbeat of the side. And, naturally, Rooney has blossomed under the spotlight of expectation with a thundering 5 goals in his first 5 games.
His average rating of 7.6 for the 5 games (including the Community Shield) is heavily weighed down by the collective team shambles at Turf Moor – in all other games we’ve ranked him at least 8 / 10, and Man of the Match on three occasions.
While his new club striker team mate Michael Owen may have sent a brochure around in the summer illustrating his talents, United’s number 10 has done his talking on the pitch – painting himself as last minute saviour, the man to dig the team out of a sticky situation, chief orchestrator of an on song display, and the man for the big occasion all in one month.
It’s fair to say that a great deal of United’s trophy aspirations lie with Rooney – and if he continues to perform in such a manner, Sir Alex’s troops may well have some medals come the end of the season.
Goal of the month : Dimitar Berbatov v Wigan
In a great team performance, this goal was the perfect snapshot – clever link up with Scholes and Rooney finding the Bulgarian who exquisitely controlled the ball over the keeper and finished emphatically.