#360view: Rooney's United career is on the brink

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  • Rooney came off the bench in the second-half against Leicester.

    Wayne’s world has come crashing down.

    Belatedly banished to the substitutes’ bench, Rooney watched on as his long reign as the king of Old Trafford was surely brought to an end by a first-half rampage against Premier League-champions Leicester City.

    As four unanswered goals crashed in during an electric 20-minute spell, this felt like the denouement to a long-running saga about the diminished striker’s role.

    An exhilarating change of the guard at Manchester United was witnessed. World-record buy Paul Pogba opened his account to cap off a breakthrough display and 18-year-old colt Marcus Rashford made it seven goals in his last seven appearances for club and country.

    A blueprint has been laid out for the future under manager Jose Mourinho. It demands dynamic, powerful and precise football.

    The waning Rooney of 2016 can no longer be a central part of it.

    Yet this should not be the end of the player, who is just three strikes shy of Sir Bobby Charlton’s club-record 249 and has already beaten this legendary figure’s leading mark for England.

    Ryan Giggs was rehoned from flying winger into crafty playmaker by the time he reached Rooney’s current age of 30. From the start of 2003/04 to his retirement two years ago, it brought the incredible Welshman 419 further appearances, 15 more major honours and the PFA Players’ Player of the Year gong. For Giggs, he would utilise his experience to provide a guiding hand as a 15-minute substitute, also knitting rotated teams together down the stretch as the big guns were rested for greater challenges.

    Rooney must undergo a similar adaption if he is to remain relevant.

    It should not be an impossible ask. Giggs was once subject to the same opprobrium, his move into the No10 role after the turn of the millennium leading to regular jeers from the terraces.

    The question now is whether he possesses the nuance to re-engineer his game and desire to rebound.

    Sadly, the evidence points to a permanent dimming of the light.

    Rooney has long played with the grace of a 55-year-old bricklayer, with his absence of aggression and poverty of touch meaning he exudes an enervating presence.

    Zlatan Ibrahimovic – the man who has usurped him up top – will soon turn 35, but against the Foxes presented a hive of activity and snarling assertion which saw granite centre-backs Robert Huth and Wes Morgan crumble.

    United’s No10 has not possessed those attributes for a long time.

    Ander Herrera’s sharpness of body and mind also exemplified what a natural central midfielder brings to the game, rather than someone who has been shoehorned in.

    Bumbling, leaden-footed display had become the unsightly norm for a player once loudly heralded as “the white Pele” by besotted Manchester United fans.

    Question marks about his motives and physicality also have never been truly denounced since a serious ankle injury, which caused a wretched 2010 World Cup, was followed by unforgivable flirtation with Manchester City.

    This has been exacerbated as first David Moyes, then renowned iconoclast Louis van Gaal meted out special privileges despite declining returns. Mourinho must now have tolerated all he can after the run of three-successive losses.

    Rooney can only hope star-struck Sam Allardyce wasn’t watching. England are also crying out to be liberated from the fallen boy wonder’s presence.

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