Wayne Rooney made his 551st Manchester United appearance and scored his 251st goal for the club in a 2-0 win at Burnley on Sunday. No player has scored more in United's 139 year history, while only five footballers have played more games for the club -- all of them, unlike Rooney, youth-team graduates.

It was a good day for Rooney and it was a good day for United. Rivals Liverpool and Manchester City both lost. They'll both finish this season empty-handed, while United will make it three trophies (albeit that one is the Community Shield) if they can overcome Celta Vigo, then win the Europa League final next month.

The injury news isn't positive, but the mood going into Thursday's Manchester derby has been lifted by three straight league wins and the prospect of a European semifinal. Injuries also mean that Rooney has a chance for a last hurrah when previously his 13 years at United were petering out into nothingness.

Sunday was only Rooney's second league start for United since December and he's become a peripheral figure in Jose Mourinho's plans. Omitted ostensibly because of injuries, there is the suspicion that it's easier to say he's injured than that he's been dropped.

With his agent in regular meetings at Carrington, it appears inevitable that we're into the last month of a largely superb United career. Rooney, 31, has a contract at United until 2019, but earns too much not to be playing and besides, he's a footballer who wants to play football. I spoke to him last summer and he said he would guarantee that he wouldn't play for another English club. That might be the case, but he said that from a position of relative strength when he was a regular for United. He's not now.

Rooney has started only 10 of United's 32 league games this season, five of which were in the first five matches, but he's remained professional. He's a powerful influence in the dressing room, but he's not tried to undermine his boss, nor is he trying to bleat or brief to the media about being frozen out.

Discontented senior pros can be a major problem for managers and Rooney could have written this season off and let himself go. Or he could have become disillusioned by being dropped for club and country.

Instead, he's trained well and was ready when called up at Burnley, where he got his sixth goal of the season. That was the 149th league game in which he's scored -- level with Andrew Cole and Frank Lampard and only behind Alan Shearer in the Premier League era. No player has scored more away goals than Rooney in the same time.

The decline of the best English player of his generation is such that he wouldn't get in the first XI of many United fans now, but with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Marcos Rojo and Juan Mata absent, the manager doesn't have the luxury of selecting his first XI. Mourinho also has fixture congestion to deal with, which has seen United play 55 games so far, while Chelsea have played 40.

It's a shame that Rooney can't go on and on and be a Ryan Giggs or an Alessandro Del Piero figure, both playing for the club where they had their greatest moments into their late 30s or 40s, but Rooney has had an exceptional career and he deserves the support of United fans in the final month of this season, rather than the mocking and criticism he incurred at the start of it.

Much of the disparagement came out of the frustration that he was not the player that he had been, but every sportsman declines at some point. It's no shame that Rooney's came after over 700 professional football matches.

Rooney retains the zest to play every game, but without Ibrahimovic at least he has the chance to manage it. The momentum is to select Marcus Rashford first, so impressive since his goal at Sunderland three Premier League victories ago. Even Antony Martial, who scored and assisted Rooney at Turf Moor and is far better suited to the kind of fleet-heeled attack that opened up Burnley, is more likely to be chosen ahead of him. To win at Burnley, who'd lost only four of their 16 games there and where United hadn't won since the 1970s, should not be underestimated.

Losing Ibrahimovic has been a blow. He's the best finisher at Old Trafford, but if there's a silver lining it's that United's attack looks substantially quicker without him, as the opening goal at Burnley showed. Fans hope it offered a glimpse into a brighter future, with the attack supplemented by another fast forward like Antoine Griezmann next term.

What United have now is a season that's still alive in its final month, with more excitement than almost every club in the Premier League. United are, after all, the last English team left in Europe.

Rashford will start as the leading striker on Thursday, in his favoured central position at the ground where he got the only goal in the last derby there in 2015-16. Rooney could figure.

This season has lurched between impressive and frustrating for United, but the stage is set for a positive end, with eight or nine big games in 25 or 28 days, starting with the derby. Rooney was the driving force in the FA Cup final last May, but didn't get off the bench in the EFL Cup final this February. Yet he's far more likely to get playing time now, a final flourish before he moves on.

Source:
courtesy of ESPNFC

by ANDY MITTEN

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