Our Change into Rain is No Change at All (Talkin' 'bout Us)

Wayne Rooney is England's saviour it turns out according to the papers today. I suppose this will last a week or so ... until he plays for Man Utd again and goes back to being the usual whipping boy ...
Anyway. Let's see what they're saying. Sam Wallace in The Independent:

At this rate Wayne Rooney should break every significant England record from caps to goals, and he should do it before he turns 30. He will play more games than Peter Shilton, he will score more goals than Bobby Charlton and when he is finished he might well have raised the standard so high that it is another 50 years before anyone is good enough to beat it.

Never more than since he starred at Euro 2004 has Rooney looked more ready to take the international game by the scruff of the neck and change England's dismal record. On Wednesday against Ukraine he will win his 50th cap. To put that in perspective, when David Beckham was Rooney's age – 23 years and five months – he had won 19 caps. Which suggests that by the time Rooney is the age Beckham is now, 34, he could be closing in on his 150th appearance for England.

Kevin Garside in The Telegraph:

On Wednesday he collects his 50th cap against Ukraine. In 49 England matches he has hit 21 goals; seven of those have come in the past four games.

His double against Slovakia demonstrated his footballing range, one a header that reprised Nat Lofthouse, the second a finish that remains within the gift of the exceptional alone.

Rooney's velvet feet trod every blade of grass. With five minutes to go he was chasing down the opposition midfield back towards the halfway line.

Were we to ask an opinion of Zinedine Zidane today about who the best player on the planet might be, I'd have a tenner on Rooney pipping Steven Gerrard.

Oliver Kay in The Times:

After all the debate over the past six years about how best to accommodate Rooney in the England team, Capello, whose historical preference is for dressing his teams in a tactical straitjacket, has ended up settling on the most liberal solution, leaving the forward free to roam where he wishes. It calls to mind Jock Stein’s response about whether Kenny Dalglish’s best position was in attack or in midfield. “Och,” Stein replied, “just let him on the park.”

Rooney will make his 50th appearance for England in the World Cup qualifier against Ukraine at Wembley Stadium on Wednesday and, if it is anything like the 49th – or the 48th, 47th or 46th, for the matter – Capello will be delighted. Even before you take his two goals on Saturday into account, Rooney was outstanding against Slovakia, so much so that the injuries suffered by all three of his strike partners over the course of the evening – Emile Heskey, Carlton Cole and Peter Crouch – at times felt like a mere detail.

Neil Ashton in The Mail:

Nothing, it seems, can stand in Wayne Rooney’s way.

He is suddenly unstoppable in an England shirt, the first player to score in four successive matches for the country since Gary Lineker began an impressive sequence with a hat-trick against Poland at the 1986 World Cup.

Rooney’s second goal against Slovakia was of the highest quality, combining movement and speed of thought to wrongfoot Senecky with his right boot and seamlessly finishing in his next stride with his left.

It's kind of annoying that the same people who slag him off week in week out for us, can praise him so much for England. Steven Howard puts the praise of Rooney into a Man Utd context, but it feels as if he's just setting him up so that after the next game he plays for us he can have a go at him for not doing what he suggested, and he gets to slag off lots of other Man Utd players:

When he came on at half-time against Fulham the other week, he galvanised a United team who had looked a parody of themselves before the break.

Then, of course, he ruined it all.

As such, he will join the equally unpredictable Scholes (sent off eight times in his career now) and Serbian defender Nemanja Vidic on the sidelines when United meet Aston Villa at Old Trafford next Sunday.

What United need most of all is the sort of Rooney we saw at Wembley on Saturday.

A bloke who bounces back and lets his talent do the talking.

A player who inspires those around him.

United won’t get it right now from Cristiano Ronaldo.

His mind has once again drifted off in the direction of Madrid after two seasons of brilliance that probably even surprised him.

Nor from the injured Dimitar Berbatov. The £31million Bulgarian striker is fine when the sun is on his back and all is going well but too prone to hide in the shadows when the clouds come rolling in.

Carlos Tevez is too much a bit-part player, Patrice Evra and Michael Carrick both a little off form while Vidic could be having a slight crisis of confidence.

Throw in defender Rio Ferdinand’s fitness problems and the sands of time that are gradually running out for Scholes and United’s need for a revved-up but responsible Rooney are both paramount and obvious.

The only thing I'll pick up here is the "Michael Carrick a little off form". This'll be the Carrick who didn't play against Fulham will it? The Michael Carrick who Sir Alex suggested was in need of a rest after his (for him) bad game against Liverpool. And that's him being a little off form is it?
Rooney's comments on the game are best represented in The Daily Star:

“I hope the next 50 caps will be even better.

“I will be pleased to get to 50 on Wednesday, but I want to win a trophy and hopefully we can do that in the near future.

“I am a bit more experienced now. I have played in big games at club level and that has really helped me.

“It was a good performance. I thought in the first half-hour especially we played some really good football and overall we deserved to win by the margin.

“I enjoy being free and it’s a great position to play.

“You can get on the ball a lot and get the chance to create goals and score goals. It’s something I really enjoy doing." ...

When it was suggested after this victory that he had played in a controlled manner for the whole of the game, Rooney stared at the questioner, narrowed his eyes and with a cheeky gleam in them said: “I’m always in a controlled manner.”

Elsewhere The Telegraph report that Samsung are the latest company to be linked with sponsoring us. And on the subject of sponsorship, Patrick Barclay in The Times writes that we should sack off the deal with AIG and have some charity on our shirts. He then goes on to explain why that won't happen, making his original point seem a trifle like having a go at us just for the sake of it:

The honourable course facing United is clear: they should forgo the £18 million or so still due on a contract expiring at the end of next season and put something admirable on their shirts free of charge, following the examples of Barcelona, who advertise Unicef, and Aston Villa (also American-owned), whose friendship is with Acorns, a children’s hospice.

For United, unfortunately, making such a decision would be like Uturning a liner, in that it would involve the scrapping of global mountains of Nike kit and other merchandise already prepared for the summer tour to China, and next season.

Note the totally unnecessary reference to China there.
And The Sun report that Jose gave "a big hint" that he could take over from Sir Alex:

When asked if he and United could be ‘a marriage’ when Fergie finally retires, Mourinho said: “Who can say no? Nobody could say ‘no’.

“Manchester United belongs to a small group of clubs around the world where nobody can say ‘no’.

“But I don’t believe he is leaving in 2010. I think he will be the same the year after, healthy and happy.

“I don’t see a reason for him to quit and I hope he still goes on."