A look at Wayne Rooney's 1st season as the United captain

The Stretford Stand

Wayne Rooney has become a talisman for the England national side, and celebrated his long-term success with the Red Devils by taking the captaincy for the 2014/15 season with pride.

The frontman was given the honour over fellow attacker Robin van Persie, despite Louis van Gaal, who was then the manager of the Dutch national side, giving the former Arsenal starman the armband instead of experienced midfielder Wesley Sneijder. This move had provoked many people to guess that the same would happen at Old Trafford, but things turned out to be quite different.

Taking over the armband from former teammate Nemanja Vidic, Rooney had now stepped in to fill the boots left by the Serbian international who won five league titles with United. Rooney’s captaincy was tested first when he led the Red Devils in the International Champions Cup, the pre-season friendly tournament in the United States. United emerged as the eventual champions and were victorious against big European names like Inter, Roma, Real Madrid and national rivals Liverpool. Soon after taking the reins at the Theatre of Dreams on the field, Rooney had also succeeded Steven Gerrard as the England senior team skipper.

The pre-season tour was not considered as an important stage to test the Englishman’s captaincy skill as not all of the squad would line-up for van Gaal’s red army The Premier League was deemed an ideal competition to determine how well can he flourish as a captain. He had scored his first goal as a skipper in the Red Devils’ opening game of the season against Swansea at Old Trafford, and despite defeat, an individual performance from Rooney had silenced the critics for a moment. Nor did he just play as a permanent forward, but came in to play the role of an attacking or a defensive midfielder when needed. This had gained him a lot of appreciation from the football fans around the globe.



Other than that, the skipper had been a firm player when it came to score goals. His form of finding the goal had come back when he was played in as a striker, his preferred position by the boss. The Dutchman had often opted to use him as a lone player up front which actually helped him get back to his goal scoring form, with the support provided to him by the flanks and the central midfielders proven to work well with the Englishman leading the line as a lone wolf.

Wayne Rooney proved to be a successful captain in his 1st season under Louis Van Gaal

In his first stint as a captain, United reached the quarter finals of the FA Cup and were looking one of the teams who could clinch the long overdue trophy at Wembley. He was the leading goal scorer with the Old Trafford club, and 14 goals in 37 saw him become the first ever player in Premier League history to reach double digits in 11 successive seasons.

Rooney has also led the team back to the Champions League – which was the first priority of the team, while climbing to second in the list of Manchester United’s all-time leading goal scorers. He may soon become the club’s highest ever goal scorer, and could also become the greatest player in the history of the Manchester side with his current form rate.

The future looks bright for Wayne Rooney while donning the armband.