Loony for Rooney?

St. Valentines Day. Bloody hate it.

It's one of them Christian-Capitalist conspiracies that blackmails you into chucking your wallet at naff poetry and furry fluffballs with embroidered hearts dotted all over them.

I once went out with a lass who was dead narked that I hadn't got her any make-up for Lovers Day. The poor mare had read somewhere about the St. Valentine's Day Mascara, she said. Any man foolish enough to fall for such a load of cods deserves to have his bank account reappropriated (unless he's a customer at Allied Irish in which case that's probably already happened).

If you've bought owt like this in the last couple of days you are a twat. Fact.

I mean if I want to be romantic with the missus then I'll do it on me own time not when Clintons Cards tells me to. She'll tell me it's nice to be presented with a thing of beauty on the 14th Feb so I took her down to the lounge and let her watch Rooney's winner v Man City over and over.

Although I have to confess, Wazza's moment of acrobatical wonder was his only contribution to the game. And it can't disguise the fact that the rampaging ogre-boy of 2004 is a distant memory for most of us.

United continue to blunder on to the title without ever looking convincing. One thing's happened in the Blue Bell, mind. For a few years now we've referred to a needless snippet of greenery on your food as a 'Nani'.

Sprig of parsley on your fish pie? That's a Nani. Mint leaf on your vanilla ice cream? A Nani. If Man United were a tasty dish, Nani was the unnecessary garnish. Not any more.

When they go forward, Portugal's Wacko Jacko Looky-Likey (during the Billie Jean years, before Michael started to want to look like a waxwork of Diana Ross) is now very much the chunky beef in the steak and ale pie. (With Vidic the hardy topcrust pastry you have to struggle hard to get through).

Nani's finish for United's first goal had the lazy ease of a Greaves. Indeed Wazza can count himself well bleeding lucky to be on the pitch given that The Languid Bulgar is in tiptop nick and Speedy Gonzales can't wait to get off the bench.

Javier Hernandez - another of them feckless fat Sombrero tossers for the Top Gear team to get their lazy hands on.

I'm not doing down the goal Rooney scored. My cliche accumulator tells me that it was: a Derby game. A Six-pointer. It deserved to win any game. But his every other touch was that of a man with kapok-covered boots.

So why the Sunday paper gush? (Apart from the opportunity to use 'Roo' in a dozen headlines. And that overhead kick saved his bacon otherwise I'm sure one of them would've come up with 'Roo-matic'.)

Could it be that the Man-Child that led England's Euro 2004 bid cannot be forgotten. That we're so desperate to revive that a kid so hirsute that he must be a genetic hair's breadth away from Richard Keys, we'll grab on to the first sign of that resurrection to prove that England's only world-class forward is back?

It's uncomfortably reminiscent of your Lawros and Hansens purring every time the creaking Michael Owen taps in a three-yarder. "'E's a goalscorer, Gary." Er, yeah. He's also got hamstrings with all the robustness of cheese straws thanks to the likes of Houllier running his little calves into the ground before he'd all growed up.

Owen of course was a 17-year-old wunderkind too when he, for the first and last time, scored a goal having picked it up over ten yards away from goal. (It may sound like I'm sniping but that's still six yards further out than Lineker.)

But that golden boy is so far off the teenage terror that he's now a Fool's Golden Boy. And despite Rooney's latest terrific tonk I'm thinking he's in the same tarnished boat.

The Jesus pose by the corner-flag can't disguise the fact that not that long ago the Old Trafford saviour was more than shuffling his avaricious little pegs across Manchester with all the speed and grace of an Egyptian dictator skipping town.

WR: "At least we don't play for them no-marks across town." CT: "Yet!"

Given the aforementioned Chicharito and Berbatov, Fergie might well see the close season as his big chance to get shot of the Scouser and cash in. He doesn't normally faff about, does he?

Certainly Rooney's a long way off joining the really big names. Like Ronaldo. I mean the retired Brazilian one. (Although let's face it, the idea that the lardbucket only just retired is as laughable a notion as the idea that the Big Society has been thought through.)

Such is the preponderance of flesh about Ronaldo in recent times it's difficult to recall how lethal he was when on song. The two goals in the 2002 final when the bloke had his haircut the wrong way round will live in the memory for a while. (Not least cos a piss-poor German team somehow stumbled to the final to face them.)

Wearing that merkin on his scalp was said to prove how confident the lad was feeling during the tournament. Maybe. Nevertheless, history will not instantly recall the fleet-footed assassin of that final, nor will it trumpet his record of 16 goals in World Cup Finals (unsurpassable unless Blatter's ugly reign leads to a year-long tournament that involves 128 countries - and it coyld happen). Instead history may remember a truly great footballer as the fat bloke with the bad barnet who cried off in 1998.

Too much Ronaldo at McDonaldo's methinks

I pray that Rooney is remembered more fondly.