𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Who are the greatest players in Manchester United’s history? The Athletic gave Andy Mitten the task of compiling his top 25, and we are counting them down this summer, in reverse order.

He explains his thought process here.

Wayne Rooney scored 253 goals for Manchester United, more than any other player in the club’s history. Four more than Sir Bobby Charlton, Rooney’s strike rate is also superior, with a goal every 0.45 games.

The Scouser from working-class Croxteth is sixth on United’s all-time appearance list, with 559 games between 2004 and 2017. He also appeared 77 times for childhood club Everton before he moved to Old Trafford for £25.6million in 2004 and 40 more for the Toffees in 2016-17.

That’s Everton, the club Sir Alex Ferguson dropped Rooney from playing against several times to shield him from “merciless” abuse.

Add to that 52 games (25 goals) for DC United in MLS and 35 (seven goals) for Championship side Derby County, who he later managed, and his total stands at 763 games, 313 goals. There were also 120 appearances for England, putting him in third behind Harry Kane and Peter Shilton, and 53 goals, leaving him ponly behind Kane. His impact at Euro 2004 when he was still a teenager came the same summer he moved to United.

The club tried to sign Rooney at 14 and 16 but got him at 18, when he needed no settling in: he scored a hat-trick on his debut against Fenerbahce in a Champions League game. Then Ferguson set about making him a ‘United player’, improving his fitness.

“Wayne needed to train all the time and did so willingly,” said Ferguson in his autobiography. “He needed to train intensively to be on the sharp edge of his game.

“When he was out with an injury his fitness would drop quickly. He has a big solid frame, and broad feet.”

Utterly driven, Rooney gave everyone hell at the training ground, from team-mates to referees. Ferguson, himself a former forward, would go at him to show who was boss, while Rooney would give it back, then apologise the next day.

“He was not the quickest learner but he had a natural instinct to play the game, an intuitive awareness of how football worked. A remarkable raw talent. Plus natural courage and energy. He was always comfortable in himself,” was Ferguson’s verdict.

“Wazza” was a mainstay from the start. He played between 37 and 55 games per season for United for 13 straight years. Twice, he netted 34 times in a campaign, but there was more to his game than goals.

He’s the only player to score more than 200 goals and provide more than 100 assists in the Premier League. Cristiano Ronaldo was a success in part because of the selfless Rooney putting the runs in out wide.

Rooney won the Premier League five times with United, the FA Cup, three League Cups, the Champions League and Europa League.

Twice United’s player of the season, he won multiple individual awards as such accolades proliferated in the 2000s.

“Rooney was the No 1 young player at the club in my mind, more than Ronaldo,” Patrice Evra said in his autobiography, I Love This Game, speaking about the striker’s role in the shift from the annus horribilis of 2005 (the Glazer takeover, no trophies and third-place finish and an FA Cup final defeat by Arsenal, despite Rooney being outstanding) to becoming English, then European and world champions by 2008.

Wayne Rooney scored four times in the Champions League in 2007-08 as Manchester United ruled Europe (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)

Roy Keane’s second autobiography, The Second Half, is full of mentions of ‘Rooney and Ronaldo were brilliant that day/night’ as United became top dogs.

“Rooney had the power, Ronaldo the tricks,” said Evra, who also adored fellow forward Carlos Tevez.

United had world-class players throughout the team, with the tough Scouser who could have become a boxer key to the mix. He had everything. He took free kicks and was better closer to the penalty box than Ryan Giggs and David Beckham.

He was, according to Gary Neville in his autobiography, Red, “great” around the dressing room. “He’s funny and good company. And he gives 100 per cent every single match. You have a lot of time for players who are talented and give their all like he does.”

Rooney also had the confidence to ask the manager who he was playing alongside… before the manager had even named his team. At least Ferguson could understand him.

“The first time I met him I thought he was speaking German,” Nemanja Vidic told The Athletic. “I couldn’t understand his accent and my understanding of English was limited. I like him because he was an honest footballer. He was a team player too. You could see him running out wide to get the ball from the full-back. I know he scored a lot of goals, but Rooney is not a selfish forward who is only about scoring goals.

“Rooney was fast and physically very strong. He had a great career and will be recognised as one of the biggest and best strikers of English football, but I think he could have done even more — if he’d had the dream to do so.”

Season after season, Rooney delivered, sometimes with spectacular goals. One, a volley against Newcastle United in his debut season, nearly burst the Stretford End net. Others against Arsenal in 2010 and West Ham United in 2014 won awards. As did perhaps his most famous one.

Wayne Rooney’s famous goal against Manchester City in 2011 is an iconic moment in the club’s history (Andrew Yates/AFP via Getty Images)

“Rooney’s bicycle kick against City (in 2011) took some beating,” said Ferguson when asked to describe the best goals he had seen. “The execution was incredible. It’s not as if that unforgettable overhead finish was delivered from the six-yard line. He was 14 yards from goal. It also took a deflection as he was running in. Nani’s cross veered off a City player, so Wayne was forced to make an amazing mid-air adjustment. That was the best goal, for my money.”

There were bumps and controversies as he grew up in the public eye playing for England’s biggest club, which was undergoing changes too. When Ferguson bought Robin van Persie, who became the main striker, Rooney needed to recalibrate.

“Robin’s rise wasn’t good for Wayne Rooney,” said Evra. “Robin became the main man, the leading striker. Wayne’s relationship with the manager deteriorated, more so after he didn’t start in some key games. We weren’t stupid, we could see that the chemistry between them wasn’t the same, but there are times in a career when you don’t see eye to eye with your manager.”

Then Ferguson left and Rooney almost did too in that same summer of 2013, but United refused to sell him. Rooney stayed and became the top performer, by a distance, again.

And Rooney now? Having tried management with mixed results, he’s become one of the best football pundits about and a long way from the boy/man I interviewed for the cover of a magazine in 2005 when he said almost nothing of interest. Not that he was paid to talk then.

It was as a footballer that he hit the greatest heights, the blue Scouser wearing the red of Manchester.

On December 21, 2008, in the cold of Yokohama, Japan, it was Rooney who stood out, United’s best player and goalscorer in a single-goal win that made Manchester United the champions of the world.

Catch up on the ranking so far