He goes by the name of Wayne Rooney

Come the 2010-2011 season. A little Mexican forward was brought in from unknown lands and Welbeck came in from the Mancunian homelands, but was sent on loan to Sunderland. So we had four forwards again, including the silky Berba and Michael Owen donning the legendary number 7 jersey. To accommodate all of them, Wayne Rooney had to move all over, once again. We stayed behind him, saying that he was all over the pitch. I see only one reason behind his first transfer request – Ferguson’s obsession to have as many as strikers possible. Central midfield is the weak link of your team and when you already have world class forwards like Ronaldo, Rooney and Tevez, why break the bank and go all guns for Berbatov? Fine. You have Rooney firing on all cylinders, Berbatov settling in and Welbeck coming in through the ranks – why go for another striker instead of buying a good central midfielder? Wesley Sneijder, may be? Fergie’s obsession with strikers has made life difficult for Wayne Rooney the striker. Wayne Rooney the footballer still played his heart out in every match, wherever he was deployed – be it a striker one match, a deep lying forward the other or a left attacker in another.

The league was won, yet another Champions League final was lost to Barcelona in which the most expensive player in the club’s history and the top scorer of the Premier League for that season could not even make the bench and the new boy, Hernandez, finished the season with 20 goals and was a fan favourite. Yet another match was lost due to our inferiority in the middle of the pitch. Berbatov fell out of favour in the next season and Wayne once again became the heart throb of our attacks the next season. The season which marked the so-called rise of the blue moon, Rooney finished with 27 league goals. But the season ended without any silverware, not because our attack was lacking but we got ran over in the middle of the pitch when it mattered once again and a season ending injury to our captain Vidic. We couldn’t just match the midfield consisting of Yaya Toure and David Silva and ended losing the league on goal difference. The lack of mettle in the centre of the pitch can be understood when Paul Scholes was recalled from retirement (though we were having many injury problems, none of our then injured midfielders would have been a match for those of the European powerhouses). Once again, no midfielder was signed in the transfer window. But instead Berbatov was offloaded and the captain of a long standing rival club, Robin van Persie, was signed.

He had just had his best season in an Arsenal shirt and he listened to the little boy screaming “Manchester United” inside him and switched Arsenal’s 10 for Manchester United’s 20. He signed in by giving the statement – I want to win you the 20^th title and hence the number 20. It was not hard for him to win over us, his goal scoring was that prolific. Great goals, great run of goals, late match winning goals, comeback inspiring goals. He had them all. He was an instant hit and was compared to King Eric. Poor Rooney came back unfit as always, and had an injury in only the second match of the season, and was out for about a month. That time was enough for Robin to make his mark. Rooney was once again pushed off the perch of the team’s talisman. This time for van Persie. Persie became the focal point of our attack, the poster boy, and he even toppled Wayne in the jersey sales. His goals were highly applauded. Everyone talks about his stoppage time winner in the Manchester derby and his sublime hat-trick against Aston Villa.