Without Rooney: Will the United Ship Sink or Cruise?

Manchester United, starting from their top management and ending with the youngest player, are aware of the importance of the coming week with two critical matches coming ahead. The first match will determine United’s chances to win the Premier League and this will be against Chelsea on Saturday. The second match will determine if United will proceed to the Semi Finals of the Champions League and this will be against Bayern Munich who has already won the first leg against United 2-1. This could have been a normal week for Manchester United, but with the injury of their goal machine, Wayne Rooney, the question that is floating: Will Manchester be able to survive without the Golden “Man”?

The scene of Rooney being carried out injured after the match in Munich sent a nervous shake to Manchester United and England’s fans, but on the other side there was at least one excited side which will be leaded by Chelsea. Chelsea will consider this injury as a boost for them to win the match on Saturday and take the hot spot and win the title. Also and not far away, Chelsea’s neighbors, Arsenal, will be boosted to take United’s position and who knows maybe compete with Chelsea for the title. But is it this bad? Are United really unable to move on without Rooney? Statistically, United has won 8 matches out of 9 without Rooney but having in mind that most of these matches were not critical and tough matches as the coming ones.  But Rooney’s teammates are confident that they can do it without him; Nani knows the importance of this and he stated that “It’s very important that we stay ahead of our rivals and don’t give them any encouragement”. Vidic on the other side stresses that United are a team and not a one player dependent, “We showed this season, we play as a team” said Vidic. So, who will be able to win: United’s team spirit or the opponents’ moral boost after the injury of Rooney?

Rooney has scored 34 goals this season for United and he has played a very critical role in leading the Red Devils to where they are. Assuming that Rooney will have a bad effect on United and their attacking pace will be slowed, this won’t be a reason for them to concede goals. A draw against Chelsea won’t be bad after all. As for the Champions League clash against Bayern FC, it was clear in the first leg that the Bavarians’ defence is weak and United had lot of chances to score, again with a solid defense without any mistakes and ability to score a single goal, United will not be far from qualifying.

Its now confirmed that Rooney will be out for two to three weeks and it will be up to Dimitar Berbatov to fill this gap and take on his shoulders the job of scoring goals and in the end, Berba is experienced enough as Ferguson said “It is always hard to leave a player of his ability out of important games, and I am sure he can thrive on [the responsibility]. He is experienced enough to be able to handle that.” Also expected to feature and play a role is the young Italian, Frederico Macheda; “He is a terrific talent and can certainly play a big part,” Ferguson said. Manchester United will be playing this week with a big question mark above Old Trafford: Will the ship sink or cruise?