After the drought, the flood. Wayne Rooney did not just end his 878-minute Manchester United goal drought. He did in spectacular style. A barren spell was ended with a hat-trick to propel United into the Champions League group stages.
Each of his goals were taken with the assurance of a man who had already found the net more than 200 times for United, none betraying the angst of a player in the midst of a much-discussed slump. Suddenly his sharpness returned and Rooney looked a very different footballer from the one who admitted he played poorly at Aston Villa 12 days earlier.
Instead, he harked back 11 years. This was a night to bring back memories of the night when the teenage recruit from Everton introduced himself to United with a European hat-trick against Fenerbahce. Much has changed since 2004, but this was an occasion when United could savour the similarities.
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Another is that, after a one-year absence, they have returned to the Champions League itself. They did so in emphatic fashion, a 4-0 win completing a 7-1 aggregate fashion over an injury-hit Club Brugge side. If qualifying was the main objective, United’s next priority was to see Rooney on the scoresheet, if only to ensure Louis van Gaal has to field fewer questions about why he has not bought a striker.
They got their wish. After 10 games of competitive club football and the best part of five months without a goal, the captain dinked a first-time shot over Sebastien Bruzzese. The hardest part seemed to be hurdling the advancing goalkeeper, who flew out and connected with neither man nor ball.
The instigator was the first-leg catalyst Memphis Depay. The Dutchman scored twice and created the other goal in United’s win at Old Trafford. He added a second assist over the tie, evading three defenders and finding Rooney with a slide-rule pass. Given the riches on offer in the Champions League, the £25 million fee Depay cost United may already have been repaid.
The young Dutchman was involved in Rooney’s second goal, too. It was a fine team move, with Depay finding Ander Herrera and the Spaniard squaring the ball for Rooney to sidefoot home. Herrera’s inclusion was the one surprise Van Gaal sprung as with Morgan Schneiderlin, who had played every previous minute of the campaign, was given a rest.
He was booked in a ring-rusty first-half display but fared better after the break when Bastian Schweinsteiger came on to give United another holding midfielder and afford Herrera the freedom to get forward. If the German’s introduction was an attempt to protect the defence, it reaped dividends in attack, especially when he pierced an increasingly porous Brugge defence and Herrera raced on to it to score himself.
Rooney had already completed his hat-trick by then with the aid of Juan Mata, whose pass was reminiscent of Depay’s through ball for the opener. Perhaps surprisingly, he was not on spot-kick duties so when Oscar Duarte was harshly deemed guilty of handball, substitute Javier Hernandez took the resulting penalty.
Thankfully for Brugge, he slipped and missed it. They had been punished enough and were not rewarded at all.
While Hans Vanaken struck the bar, Brugge needed six goals by then. The only real scare for United came a couple of minutes before half-time when Victor Vazquez, briefly at team-mate of Lionel Messi at Barcelona, played a defence-splitting pass. Abdoulay Diaby advanced but Sergio Romero dived at his feet to claw the ball away. The Argentinian has still only conceded one goal in his United career and that was to a team-mate, Michael Carrick, in last week’s first leg. United’s subsequent response rendered that a statistical footnote.
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