As Manchester United injuries mount, Wayne Rooney thrives

Napoleon once said that, when it came to selecting his generals, he would rather they were lucky than they were good.
On that logic, it's unlikely that he would have promoted Louis van Gaal very much within his army, since some of the injuries sustained by the Dutchman's Manchester United squad look like terrible misfortune.
The most recent of these saw Angel Di Maria cut down while playing for Argentina vs. Portugal due to a tackle from, of all people, Nani. The club's record signing is not certain to be available for Saturday's game against Arsenal.

Yet some argue that the extensive injury list owes less to fate than the intensity of their training schedule. Raymond Verheijen, the Dutch coach notorious for his blunt assessment of various clubs' fitness regimes on social media, tweeted recently, "The Man United injury crisis was predictable. Double sessions (fatigue) during a US trip (fatigue) with players returning from WC (fatigue)?"

He continued: "Accumulation of fatigue due to insufficient recovery time between training & games is main reason for injuries. Slower nerve system."
Verheijen then pointed to tweets he had published on Aug. 14, which warned that "[Van Gaal] is tactically superior to most other coaches but planning & periodisation is not his strongest point: double sessions & muscles injuries."

In Van Gaal's defence, few of the injuries that United players have suffered can conceivably be placed straight at his door. Luke Shaw went off with a groin problem against Scotland in England's 3-1 victory, and his training programme was the focus of much attention early in Van Gaal's tenure.

Phil Jones has had hamstring trouble this season, which might be down to Van Gaal, but then again, he is a player whose body has consistently let him down in recent years. The same is true for Jonny Evans, who as a Northern Ireland international did not have the distraction of the World Cup to contend with this summer.
The mundane reality may be that Van Gaal has inherited a set of players who are unusually prone to physical breakdown. Most emblematic of these is Radamel Falcao, a superb striker on his day but one who has had to fight back from severe knee injuries, the most recent of which may have cost his country dearly at the World Cup.

Though Colombia performed superbly without him, perhaps benefiting from the low expectations caused by his absence, they could perhaps have gone as far as the semifinal -- instead of losing narrowly to Brazil in the quarterfinals -- had he been in the team.

Given United's vast financial resources, their injury list will be met with little sympathy among their Premier League counterparts, even if the circumstances in which they have arisen are somewhat freakish: Daley Blind damaged knee ligaments in a fall after a challenge; David De Gea dislocated his thumb in training.
Perhaps the only vaguely common thread is that most of these players developed new complications during the international break. Sir Alex Ferguson was well-known for withholding his players from friendly matches. It will be interesting if, in months to come, Van Gaal starts to do the same.

Resurgent Rooney impresses for England
After a week in which Wayne Rooney passed the 100-cap mark for England and moved onto 46 goals for his country, it feels as good a moment as any to reflect on his achievements for the national side.
On several occasions, particularly at recent World Cups, they have been underwhelming, but at the same time, it's not as if Rooney has been always averse to brilliance in an England shirt, with memories of his stellar Euro 2004 tournament still wistfully fresh in many minds.

To see him prove decisive against Slovenia and Scotland was to be reminded that, for all his flaws, he often does what elite players are supposed to: make the difference. Given his relentless accumulation of goals and assists, he may be a player far more charitably regarded by the history books than he is now.
It is telling that, with 219 goals in 450 games for Manchester United, his career at Old Trafford is still regarded by many with some disappointment. Much of this was due to the euphoria that greeted his arrival, with that hat-trick in his Champions League debut vs. Galatasaray.
Many will point to the subsequent decline of his fitness, which may have hindered his inconsistent first touch, what with the direct correlation between physical condition and coordination.

With three goals in two games, Wayne Rooney was in fine form for England over the international break.

Yet there was also a time when Rooney's first touch seemed immaculate (for example, the 2005 FA Cup final against Arsenal), and so it seems that there is no one reason for his final arrival not in the ranks of the truly great but of the merely very, very good. One of those many reasons was undoubtedly the, for him, unfortunate emergence at precisely the same time of Cristiano Ronaldo as one of the world's leading attackers.

Much has been made of Rooney's failure to maintain peak physical condition, but it is also noteworthy that he played as a self-sacrificial foil for Ronaldo for several years before getting the central role that he seems to have craved.
Some might say that's his own fault and that if he had been a more reliable marksman he might have had a better career, but it's rare that one of the greatest talents of his generation has so often been called upon to play second fiddle and, it must be noted, with so few complaints.

Looking at his overflowing trophy cabinet, and corresponding bank account, it is unlikely that Rooney will feel too many lasting regrets, but among many supporters, there may always be a frustrating sense of what might have been.

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