After finishing last Wednesday's Barclays Premier League match against Burnley operating as a defensive midfielder and being praised for his efforts in the role by his manager Louis van Gaal, Wayne Rooney was back playing up front for Manchester United in the FA Cup tie at Preston.
Here, we assesses Rooney’s performance in his side’s 3-1 fifth-round victory at Deepdale.
His plan of attack
Starting on the left side of a three-man forward line, Rooney showed some nice touches and movement here and there but, as with United’s performance overall, for much of the contest the skipper struggled to produce anything truly potent.
He was just unable to latch on to a few attempted tee-ups, and in the 18th minute he saw his strike from a Luke Shaw cross come back off a fine block by John Welsh.
When the Red Devils later started to turn the tie around, Rooney’s key involvement was to avoid touching the ball while standing offside as Ander Herrera equalised before his graft was finally rewarded late on as he won and converted a penalty for his first goal of 2015 – albeit with questions again being asked, this time over whether there had been any contact on him when he went down in the box.
His dropping back
As is typical even when he has been deployed as a forward, Rooney frequently dropped back to either aid the defensive effort or help with build-up play.
On this occasion he was, more than anything else, the man looking to be on the end of moves, though and after having been frustrated for a long period on that front, he looked understandably delighted when his spot-kick hit the back of the net.
His overall performance
On his return to the front line, Rooney certainly did not deliver his most devastating performance as a striker in what was a very disjointed display from United as a whole.
But he showed more energy and commitment than a lot of his team-mates during the contest and it yielded a goal in the end, regardless of how legitimately the penalty was earned.
Source: DSG
