Wayne Rooney is fast becoming the irresistible choice for footballer of the year. He already has 32 goals for the season and anyone who wants to pick holes in him should do so knowing he did not get to the top of his profession without having the ability to swat away criticism in the way the rest of us deal with a troublesome fly. But there is still one anomaly when it comes to recognising him as the "complete striker" – and it is nothing to do with the argument about what he can or cannot do with his left foot.
The statistics of Rooney's career are so impressive it is worth a double-take that the man who is already over halfway towards Sir Bobby Charlton's scoring record for England has gone 15 hours and 50 minutes of match-time without finding the net in his games for Manchester United against Liverpool.
In total there have been 11 and Rooney has scored once, going all the way back to January 2005 and a 1-0 win at Anfield in which, true to form, he celebrated directly in front of the Kop. That was his first experience of this famous sporting enmity but in the next 10 games the recurring theme has been of a player struggling to make an impact, drifting in and out of the action and, at times, allowing the opposition fans' hostility to affect him.
Is it coincidence or something more deep-rooted? Rooney is not the golden boy of English football by default and there is inevitably a temptation to dismiss his modest record against Liverpool as a glitch. But then you look at his figures against Everton and a pattern starts to emerge, one that has not escaped the attention of Sir Alex Ferguson. Rooney has one goal in nine appearances against the club where he began his career and, as Liverpool visit Old Trafford tomorrow, the question is this: why does the footballer who is doing more than anyone to steer United towards a fourth successive league title struggle against the Merseyside teams?
Ferguson, for one, does not believe it is a quirk of numbers and was sufficiently concerned to contemplate leaving out Rooney when his team went to Anfield last October. In the end he trusted in his player but Liverpool won 2-0 and, once again, Rooney spent long spells on the edges of the game. Rooney's allegiances are no secret – "I grew up as an Everton fan hating Liverpool," he declared last season, "and that hasn't changed" – but there is a sense at Old Trafford that he can be his own worst enemy when it comes to playing the Merseyside teams, Liverpool in particular.
The issue has been discussed behind the scenes at Old Trafford, where Ferguson has voiced concerns that his most penetrative player may be getting too wrapped up in all the different emotions that come from playing against teams from the city where he grew up and his huge and possibly distractive desire both to inflict a little bit of misery on Liverpool and to show the Everton supporters who now revile him what they are missing.
The encouraging part for United is that, five months since losing at Anfield, Rooney is a different player, revelling in the most prolific form of his life and scoring so regularly you would not bet against him doing away with the notion that Liverpool are threatening to become his bogey club, just as Cristiano Ronaldo successfully dealt with the criticism levelled at him over several seasons that he never turned it on in the big matches.
But when it comes to Rooney being on the same pitch as Fernando Torres the Spaniard is ahead by some distance. Ferguson once told a room of football writers that he had abandoned trying to sign Torres from Atlético Madrid after deciding he was "not composed enough in front of goal", which will have to be remembered as one of his least distinguished judgments. Torres has scored in his last two games against United and single-handedly consigned Nemanja Vidic's candidacy for footballer of the year to the dustbin when Rafael Benítez's team won 4-1 at Old Trafford last season.
The ordeal was so great for Vidic he has never fully recovered. Torres had unmasked the Serb's weakness: that he is prone to getting too close behind attackers and susceptible if they spin off at pace. Gabriel Agbonlahor, of Aston Villa, has also shown how it can be done and that, when he is caught out, Vidic has a tendency to bring down opponents, as was evident in the Carling Cup final.
As yet Rooney has not caused Liverpool's defenders anything like the suffering to which Torres has subjected Vidic. Taking into account his time at Everton, his overall record against the Anfield club is one goal in 15 games. Rooney might be having the season of a lifetime but, for once, he might not be the most feared striker on the pitch at Old Trafford tomorrow.
