Rooney stamps his name on an era

A favoured cliché of the Match Of The Day-style pundit is “goals change games” but strikes like Rooney’s on Saturday change seasons – even eras.

The Doomlords were still out in force at Old Trafford as late as the 77th minute. After all, a game that had been bossed by City for the first 40 minutes was, once again, appearing to get away from us; Rooney had been low-key and ineffective all afternoon; memories of the 2008 embarrassment were creeping into the frame of vision.

In less than two seconds, as though a solar explosion had intervened, all was brilliant light once more.

2011 isn’t going to be 1968 after all; Rooney is not “finished” as so many pressmen have been implying; and City, yet again, are left to stew in their own eternal bitterness.

We oldies like to lecture the youngsters when they come racing in with some tale of The Latest Thing, that they’ve seen nothing. We always have some superior example from the ‘70s or ‘60s to throw back at them, and almost all of the time we are right. They don’t call them the good old days for nothing, you know, sonny. (You can never tire of calling someone in his 30s ‘sonny’.)

However, even we have had to surrender to the Spud Faced Nipper this time. I’d still like to cite Hughesy v Sheff Wed in 1994, Cantona v Arsenal 1996 and Buchan v Everton in 1978 for the Old Trafford Goal Honour Roll but, hand on heart, I couldn’t say Wayne’s fell short, even in that hallowed company.

He turned most of the 75,000 watching grown-ups into delighted children who could do nothing but gasp in awe as though seeing Santa’s sleigh land on their roof. It’s been a season largely bereft of such moments, admittedly – but this was one of those that reminds you why you watch this rather ludicrous activity week after week.

Where else can you see art, athleticism, intelligence, courage and imagination so brilliantly fused and encapsulated in one split-second gesture? If this is to be the moment that Rooney finally comes alive in 2010/11, then Arsenal are going to have their work cut out in keeping up until May.

Valencia is back in training too, so Fergie will soon be able to argue, in his time-honoured fashion, that it’ll “be like signing two new players”. Moreover, the superb coming-of-age display by Chris Smalling has, in a stroke, potentially removed the Ferdinand factor from the equation; if Chris can be relied upon to dovetail as well as he did with Vidic for the rest of the

season, then Rio’s increasingly wearisome injuries will no longer trouble us as much as they did when only Jonny Evans was available to replace him. All that said, no-one is getting carried away – this is not February 2010, for example, when we were getting seriously confident about doubles and title records just weeks before that deadly Munich moment.

Arsenal’s next nine games constitute wall-to-wall easy-peasydom – even allowing for the Gooners’ legendary flakiness. Meanwhile, we still have to travel to the Emirates and face Chelsea twice, and fit in continuing FA Cup commitments too (assuming the equivalent of the asteroid doesn’t hit us on Saturday.)

Ah, yes, Crawley; the second set of annoying small-time chumps we will be having to let into O.T. within a week. There’s not a Red alive who enjoys these occasions, which are the price you pay for pre-eminence.

You can’t even indulge in a bit of fair-minded sympathy for the underdog, given the way Crawley have built themselves up, and the nature of their ownership. This is not a happy-go-lucky non-League fairytale such as that seen with FC United.

Besides, our minds will already be on Marseille, from whose old port I shall report ‘live’ next week. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to rewind Saturday’s tape for the 287th time…”