Premier League: Manchester United captain or not, it's time to drop Wayne Rooney

Wayne Rooney has gone 954 minutes without scoring in the Premier League. That’s 11 starts and he lasted the full 90 minutes in nine of them. He was hauled off at half-time in the remaining two games — in which he played a combined 88 minutes. In seven of these games, he played centre forward. In the other four, just like against Southampton on 20 September, he played behind the striker in the number 10 position.

Louis van Gaal has done everything possible to get the best out of his captain — his ‘best captain’ — in a managerial career which has seen him take charge of Ajax, Barcelona and Bayern Munich among other teams. And it is only that status which is saving Rooney from being dropped. The hallowed Manchester United armband acting like a shield against the obviously glaring chinks in his armour.

On Sunday evening, with 19-year-old Anthony Martial robbing Rooney of his favourite striker’s position with much aplomb, England’s top scorer looked like the biggest misfit in the team — he was there, but not quite. He had zero touches in the opposition’s penalty box, didn’t create a single chance, made a solitary interception, lost all his aerial duels and completed one take-on in one of United’s better games.

Rooney’s heatmap against Southampton

That’s hardly inspirational from a man who is supposed to lift his team by virtue of his aura. And more importantly, performance.

The explosive Rooney of old was long gone during the days of Alex Ferguson, but he was still controlling games a couple of seasons ago. Now, it seems, even that ability from the final third is waning at a disastrous speed.

This comes on the back of an untouchable status, something Ferguson gave no one in his teams, and which Van Gaal has given to Rooney without any real evidence of his need in the playing 11. Maybe the only solution to get the best out of him is to drop him, which the Dutchman is reluctant to do, because he is his skipper.

Cricket fans will relate to this — the older and more experienced player with great accomplishments in the past riding on reputation — the worst of which results in blocking a younger more expressive player’s path to the first team. Not even the best escape this — neither Arsenal captain Mikel Arteta nor Chelsea captain John Terry, both of whom were benched for their respective clubs’ derby on Saturday.

Why then, is Rooney still around? In five Premier League games this year, he has one assist to show in terms of productivity. But let’s be fair, let’s consider his other contributions in five matches — a total of 450 minutes, eight shots at 43 percent accuracy, 189 passes with 85 percent accuracy (117 of which are backward passes and only six termed as ‘key passes’). His average pass length is 16.2 metres, which is the longest among the top five lone forwards in the Premier League, and he’s won just five aerial duels.

Those numbers are put to the test against the league’s top scorers, all players who are supposedly inferior to Rooney: Callum Wilson, Graziano Pelle, Bafetimbi Gomis and Jamie Vardy. Apart from backward passes played, Rooney has not outdone these names in a single category.

Forget about other strikers, a comparison within the Manchester United squad, purely based on numbers, places him 13th in the list of top performers. It’s quite shocking that he still continues to start — while natural successors to his role like Adnan Januzaj (loaned to Borussia Dortmund) and Andreas Pereira don’t get a steady run.

Much can be said about Rooney’s passing, first touch and lack of pace. What has hurt the team most however, is his lack of creativity. Once a focal point of every United attack, Rooney has now been reduced to a spectator. His numbers have been dipping season after season — in 2013-14, he scored 19 goals and lay-on 22 assists; last year he had 14 goals and six assists and this year he has had a miserable start.

For a 29-year-old who is the highest paid player at Manchester United, Rooney has not lived up to the faith shown in him by Van Gaal. He will come back with a burst of goals and all will be forgotten, but his impact on the pitch — qualitatively and quantitatively is simply not good enough.

To get the best out of him, Van Gaal must drop Rooney. Mediocrity won’t cut it at Manchester United, and Rooney must learn it the hard way.

All stats and infographics courtesy Squawka

The writer tweets @TheFalseNo9