Wayne Rooney: My Decade in the Premier League (29 page)

Not today though. Today we’ve won and I’ve scored a couple of goals. More importantly, we’ve beaten Liverpool and we’re still in the hunt for the title. Somebody takes the mickey out of a chance I scuffed late in the game. Scholesy cheekily stepped over the ball. It was a neat dummy that gave me a great chance to get my hat-trick. Instead I fired the ball wide.

I make out that I meant it.

‘I was trying to play a one-two with the post, but I missed,’ I shout back.

I feel good. I get stuck into my potato wedges. I listen to Patrice’s Samba music on the stereo. I wonder how City will get on tomorrow against Villa. I think about our next game against Norwich. And the game after that against Spurs.

Then I think about scoring more goals, winning more games.

Talk about ups and downs.

In the 2011/12 season, I make my 500th senior appearance, but then I’m making all sorts of records and personal achievements. Like on 10 September 2011, when I get three goals in a 5–0 win over Bolton and become only the fourth player in Premier League history to score back-to-back hat-tricks (it follows those three goals in the 8–2 thrashing of Arsenal). Or on 18 October 2011, when I score two goals against Otelul Galati in the Champions League group stages and it takes me past Scholesy as the highest-scoring Englishman in the history of the Champions League.

I even have my best season for yellow cards. I only get one all campaign because I work hard on the silly bookings I usually pick up every year. I keep my mouth shut when refs
give decisions against us. I don’t react to players when they try to wind me up.

I can feel my temperament changing. Some people might think it’s down to the incident at West Ham or my terrible year in 2010/11, but really it’s more likely to be a result of my age. I’ve grown up loads recently and as I’ve got older, I’ve become calmer. People forget that I’ve been in the limelight since I was 16. Back then my emotions were all over the place, like they would be for any teenager. Even four or five years ago, when I was in my early 20s, my enthusiasm and short fuse was probably down to immaturity. I was reckless on the pitch, desperate to make every tackle, every pass, because I was so mad on winning. If ever someone said anything to me or my teammates in the heat of a game, I’d usually react badly in one way or another. I’d give it back or jump into the next tackle too quickly. I was like a firework waiting to go off.

I guess it’s normal to be wound up at that age. People have so much energy, too much sometimes. Add that to a lack of maturity and it becomes a dangerous mix. I know because I’ve gone through that stage. I’d like to think that it’s over and done with for me now.

Well, nearly over and done with. The thing is, I know I’m still prone to the odd rush of blood to the head. My red card in October 2011, when England play Montenegro in a European Championship qualifier, is an example of that. During the game, my head goes. I lash out at a player with my boot after I lose control of the ball and I get sent off. It means I have to miss the first two games of the finals in Poland and Ukraine.

So, there’s still a bit of work to do then
.

The most important thing is that by calming my emotions down, my game is actually benefiting. I’m not chasing the ball all over the pitch, I’m saving my energy for the opponent’s half instead. I’m focusing on working in and around the box; I’m being more selfish, especially when it comes to taking my chances in front of goal. Don’t get me wrong, if someone’s in a better position than me, I’ll always pass the ball to them. But if the keeper’s beat and the ball’s coming back across goal, then I’ll always try to be the first one in – before Berba, Hernandez, or Danny Welbeck can get there. It’s a striker’s mindset.
I love scoring goals
.

I get loads of them in the second half of the 2011/12 season and every one of them is a buzz at the time, but by the end of the campaign they mean nothing. The personal records mean nothing. The improved temperament means nothing. And you want to know why?

Because we get knocked out of the League Cup quarter-final by Crystal Palace.

We get knocked out of the FA Cup Fourth Round by Liverpool.

We don’t even make it through the group stage of the Champions League. And then we get knocked out of the Europa League by Atletico Bilbao.

Who cares how many personal accolades a player picks up in a season if they’ve not got a trophy to show for it at the end?

I don’t
.

*****

There’s still the Premier League.

In April, we build an eight-point gap between us and City with six games to go. We’re in the driving seat and everyone’s thinking the same thing, including me.

This is United, we know what we’re doing. We’ll see this out
.

But we don’t.

We face Wigan away. They’re playing some good football despite being stuck in the bottom three for large chunks of the season. From the kick-off, the momentum seems to be with them and everything goes against us. They score from a corner, though it should have been a goal-kick; the ref turns down a penalty appeal by us. We can’t seem to get behind their defence and make chances.

Games like this do my head in, matches when I can’t work out what’s going wrong, why we’re not clicking.

We could be playing for five hours straight here and still not score.
As it’s happening, I can see that the whole team is locked into the same mad mindset, but there’s nothing we can do to snap out of it.

The fans can sense it in these games too. They can tell we’re not going to put one away. Frustration starts to creep in as the game goes on, and the players try that much harder. That increased pressure leads to more mistakes and Wigan take control of the game. The only answer is to keep going, to push the opposition back.

Maybe a lucky pen or a deflected goal will change the mood
.

It doesn’t happen for us. Wigan win 1–0. We deserve it. They play well, we play poorly. Our eight-point lead becomes five.

We play Everton at home and go 4–2 up; I score a couple – my goals take me past George Best and Dennis Viollet on United’s list of all-time scorers (I go fourth). Nani and Danny Welbeck get goals as well and I can feel I’ve really built up a good understanding with Danny. He’s quick, he’s great when he’s running in behind defences and he’s good with his feet. I love it when he comes short, pulling the defence with him because he can link the play up with me and the midfield. It allows me to get behind the back four.

But just when everything’s going well against Everton, something unexpected happens. We relax. We act like the game’s won. We give their wide men, like winger Steven Pienaar, too much time on the ball and they punish us. They hit crosses into the box towards their two target men, Marouane Fellaini and Nikica Jelavic. Everton get two late goals from Jelavic and Pienaar and snatch a 4–4 draw.

Disaster. Five points becomes three.

Then it’s crunch time: City at their place and it feels like a cup final. Everything seems to rest on this game. I know that if we beat them we’ll go into the last two games of the season with a six-point cushion, which should give us the title, psychologically at least. They know that if they beat us, they’ll draw level, but it will edge them ahead on goal difference.

It’s a big ask to win this game. City are strong, solid, especially at home, and in the 45th minute their captain, Vincent Kompany, scores a header from a corner. After that we can’t break them down. They keep the ball away from us and dominate possession. We can’t even pop a shot off at
goal. I don’t think Joe Hart has a save to make for the rest of the game.

We lose, 1–0.

Eight points to nothing in the blink of an eye.

*****

I keep asking the same question over and over.
Second on goal difference? How has this happened?

The experts start having a pop at us, they’re saying we’ve blown it. People are going on about how good City are, how they play great football, how they’re the strongest team in the league. They’re also saying that we’re a below-average United team and we’re not as good as some of The Manager’s sides of the past.
Well, if that’s the case, how come we’re only behind City on goal difference?

It couldn’t be any closer.

Everyone’s on edge.

If there’s one person who knows how we feel, then it’s Gary Nev. He’s on the TV quite a lot and he’s saying the same thing over and over again: ‘If United lose this title on goal
difference, The Manager will hate it more than anything, because it’s a nightmare to have the same points as the champions and not to have your hands on the trophy. There’s nothing worse in the game.’

He’s spot on there
.

I try to think of why we’ve gone wrong, how we’ve given away so many silly goals in games we ordinarily would have won. I think we’ve been naive sometimes. Normally we’d close games out. The draw with Everton was a match that we never would have chucked away before, but instead of killing the game off, we pushed forward and looked to attack; we left ourselves exposed. We forgot about the importance of winning games by the odd goal, and when we went ahead at 2–1, then 3–1, then 4–2 (they scored first), we tried to grab more goals rather than shutting up shop as The Manager would have liked.

It was the same in the Champions League. We dropped points in matches we should have sewn up. We showed a lack of experience against Basle and Benfica at home in the group – tough games, but games we should have taken all three points from. On those nights we forgot to defend all over the pitch. We just wanted to attack the other lot.

I know I’ve been guilty of that myself in the past, so I can see it when other players forget about defending. When I was in my teens and my early 20s, all I thought about was scoring goals. I wanted to score all the time. I wanted to push forward and attack whenever I got the opportunity. Now I’ve realised I can’t do that in the Champions League or the Premier League. A good team will always punish us if
ever we get carried away. And we’ve done it too many times this season, in both the league and Europe.

Now it’s cost us, big time.

*****

The Manager can see it, too. Following our defeat to Wigan, we beat Villa 4–0. I score two goals, one of them a pen, but again the team doesn’t play that well, despite the scoreline. The Manager has a pop at me after the game. He says to the media afterwards: ‘Wayne has to play on the edge of a game, when it’s really close and competitive. When the game gets to that casual bit, he’s worse than the rest of them. He gets really casual about it. It’s better when he’s on the edge. Then he’s a marvellous player.’

I don’t complain. I think he’s trying to keep us all on our toes as the season gets to the business end. He has to. There’s no room for error.

*****

After the defeat at the Etihad Stadium we beat Swansea 2–0 at home; City beat Newcastle 2–0 at St James’ Park. It’s all coming down to the last game of the season.

We train well all week. The Manager gets us focused on the match ahead. He tells us the Premier League is City’s to lose rather than ours to win; they have QPR at home, we have Sunderland away. Everyone expects City to pick up a comfortable three points. He says that all we can do is to win our match and pray that QPR can upset the odds and pull off a shock result.