Wayne Rooney must revive winning ways to reclaim title of Manchester United talisman from Robin van Persie It must hurt, even a little, despite an argument that it shows Rooney's versatility and the telepathy between the pair as confirmed when his instinctive flick found Van Persie for his goal during last Saturday's win away to Reading. That was probably one of Rooney's best performances this season and there is strong argument that his ability to fit in has helped Van Persie perform so well. Certainly their link-play, at times, has been sensational and no one has more assists for United this season than Rooney. But for all that adaptability, for all his own undoubted talent Rooney has been usurped. United would not be top of the table without Van Persie and Rooney knows it. Opta statistics show that without Van Persie, United would have just four wins instead of 12 and eight draws instead of none. Van Persie has talked, complimentarily, about the pair being "nine and a half" rather than number nine or ten but the fact is that he's emphatically become the focus of United's attack. It's not interchangeable, as it was suggested it would be, and Van Persie is the prime target just as he became at Arsenal - where he started off playing out wide and had to wait until Thierry Henry was eventually sold to move more consistently into the middle. When Shinji Kagawa returns to fitness where will that leave Rooney? Just as pertinently if United buy, as is expected, the Polish international striker Robert Lewandowski for £15m from Borussia Dortmund next summer then does Rooney become an even more peripheral figure? Or is he, at 27, going to succumb to the desire from United - which is closely being monitored by England manager Roy Hodgson who has similar thoughts - that he needs to reinvent himself as a midfielder as indeed Paul Scholes did albeit at an early stage of his career. It was instructive that Rooney played the whole 90 minutes against Cluj because, yet again, he needed the fitness. He always, it seems, needs the fitness - as was shown during Euro 2012 and at points last season also. Ferguson has had to, on several occasions, discuss Rooney's body shape, his metabolism, how he puts on weight quickly and needs to train and play. "He needed a couple of games," said an understandably defensive Ferguson again on Friday. He had tonsillitis and he missed a couple of games and of course he wasn't training and he's the type who wants to train and play all the time - that's why I gave him the full 90 minutes on Wednesday night, it brings him on. That's why I think he'll be OK for Sunday. Much barroom debate over the last few days has centred on that old chestnut of which players would make it into a combined Manchester XI. Rooney is usually one of the four, possibly five United players but the arguments for him are less convincing than before - and may owe as much to the loss of form of City's strikers. Two years ago City were desperate to sign him - as were Chelsea - and there was briefly a seismic stand-off between Rooney and Ferguson. A few months after that he was scoring that spectacular overhead kick at Old Trafford to win the derby and it seemed to emphatically seal his importance. Again, though, that followed another spell of Rooney searching for his fitness - being sent away to Portland, Oregon by Ferguson to work on it. But would City come calling again if there was a hint Rooney might leave United? The chances are now that they wouldn't - partly because he is older - but also because he may not quite be the player he was. He has confounded criticism before - the mark of a great sportsman - and can obviously do so again. What price today of another bicycle kick, another dynamic intervention? He has the eye for the big occasion even if he doesn't always deliver. The suspicion is that Wayne may be on the wane.