Goalscorer Preview - Manchester United v Stoke City: Wayne Rooney

Wayne Rooney will be buzzing and high on confidence after his first goal from open play since last March.

Rooney netted a superb header during the 2-1 victory away at West Bromwich Albion. Many pundits now seem to agree that a goal feast for Rooney is just around the corner and that he will be determined to ride high on his latest wave of confidence.

Credit must go to Sir Alex Ferguson who has resisted the temptation to play Rooney in a wider role while a number of wingers are missing from the team. Ferguson has kept Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov glued together in a 4-4-2 that has been the fuel behind some impressive results for United over the last few weeks.

Manchester United fans can now look forward to seeing all of the little things that have made Rooney’s game famous. The goal drought would have been playing on his mind and he’ll now run a little bit faster and harder during games when he does and doesn’t have the ball.

Such is Rooney’s confidence he could even lead the United attack in a 4-5-1 if the manager chose to go this way. However, Berbatov’s form means it will be extremely annoying and unfair to the Bulgarian if United started deploying this sort of game plan.

The impressive thing about Rooney’s performance against West Brom was that he used the space created by his strike partner so well. Berbatov stretched the defence and Rooney found little pockets of space to play football in. A classic demonstration of this was the yard of space he had to place his header.

Now would be a very good time to start backing the United attack because one striker is right in form and Rooney is just returning to his best. Rooney is a best price of 7/2 to score first against Stoke and 18/19 to bag a goal at any point during the game at Old Trafford.