Manchester United’s pre-season programme has taken them from Kuala Lumpur to Munich, with stop-offs in Seoul and Hangzhou, encompassing nine hours of football, but Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen have yet to appear on the pitch at the same time.
It is a curious trend that continued last night when United took on Bayern Munich in the Audi Cup final at the Allianz Arena, in a goalless match that was followed by the familiar tale of a German team emerging victorious in a penalty shoot-out.
Amusingly, the decisive penalty was converted by Daniel van Buyten, who had a brief spell with Manchester City five years ago. But as the squad headed straight to the airport afterwards, Rooney and Owen are more likely to have been trying to draw conclusions from Sir Alex Ferguson’s team selections in the six warm-up matches.
It is unwise to try to deduce much of anything meaningful from pre-season matches, whether with regard to performance or team selection, but to judge from his reluctance to play Rooney and Owen together, with the pair taking turns to operate alongside or behind Dimitar Berbatov, Ferguson’s confidence in an all-English strike partnership must either be minimal or so great that he feels they have no need to work on it.
Rooney and Owen have scored a combined 15 goals in the 20 matches they started together for England before the latter was exiled from the squad by Fabio Capello, but with the exception of a highly profitable few weeks playing in tandem at the European Championship finals in Portugal in 2004, their partnership did not always look convincing.
Owen, indeed, scored only six of those 15 goals, averaging one every 227 minutes when playing alongside Rooney, as opposed to one every 82 minutes when he has been partnered by Emile Heskey in the national team. Rooney, too, has enjoyed the most prolific spell of his England career alongside Heskey, a striker unlike any of those at Ferguson’s disposal.
Berbatov, notable for his poise rather than his power, is certainly no Heskey, but it seems increasingly that he will be the fixed point in the United forward line in the coming season, with Rooney his most likely partner.
Ferguson has admitted that Berbatov had a “strange” first season at Old Trafford, but the Bulgaria forward was United’s most impressive performer last night, hitting the post with a spectacular overhead kick in the first half and no doubt strengthening the manager’s conviction that he will have a “fantastic season” this time.
Owen squandered a decent opportunity early in the second half before making way for Rooney, who did likewise after being set up by Ryan Giggs. Rooney did at least keep his nerve to score during the penalty shoot-out, but Bayern finally prevailed when Van Buyten scored after Michael Rensing, the goalkeeper, had saved from Patrice Evra and Jonny Evans.
More vexing than the defeat was the continued absence of Nemanja Vidic, who has yet to make an appearance in the six pre-season matches, having missed the tour to Asia because of an ankle problem and then strained his calf during the warm-up before the 2-1 victory over Boca Juniors on Wednesday.
The Serbia defender will hope to figure in the home match against Valencia next Wednesday and the Community Shield against Chelsea four days later, but a series of injuries to defenders is a concern for Ferguson, with the opening Barclays Premier League fixture, at home to Birmingham City, only 16 days away.
Wes Brown sat out last night’s game with a calf problem, while Rafael Da Silva and Gary Neville are back in Manchester with a dislocated shoulder and a groin injury respectively.
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