Wayne Rooney almost doubled his tally for the season against Aston Villa mid-week, but Thomas Rooney tells us why his namesake has been back for longer than a week. If Roo's not scoring, he's setting-up someone else - and that alone could help United lift a couple of trophies at the end of the season...

  Report By: Thomas Rooney, 12:20pm

Something has been missing from Old Trafford of late. The points were rolling in as usual, and United are safely atop of the table, but something still didn’t feel right. That feeling evaporated in the crisp Manchester air on Tuesday night as Wayne Rooney found the back of the net for only the fourth time this season. As if to prove a point he soon added his fifth of the season...

On the plane departing for the 2006 World Cup Rooney is rumoured to have announced that 'the big man is back' upon his timely return from injury to play in the tournament. The big man is definitely back this time as well. Big Free Bet will surely place them as dead-certs to win the title.

Sir Alex Ferguson noted an upturn in his performances since he returned from injury over the festive period to play against Tottenham Hotspur, but there were elements missing from his game. His passing was errant and was subsequently substituted mid-way through the second half of that game as he looked to be getting frustrated with his own performance. The technique was there but perhaps the match sharpness was missing as he struggled to help United fire.

But the turning point came during United’s 5-0 win over Birmingham last month. Although he didn’t manage to get his name on the scoresheet, the spark seemed to have returned as he found his passing range and tormented the Birmingham defence with his powerful running. 

His crowning moment came as he laid a beautiful back-heel into the path of in-form striker Dimitar Berbatov to carve open the defence. The Bulgarian played a delicious ball across to Ryan Giggs who tucked away a neat finish. The manner of the goal, the movement of Rooney and his team-mates hinted at a better second half of the season than the first.

After the Villa game, those over at bigfreebet note how Gerard Houllier described the former Everton man as 'awesome', while Sir Alex Ferguson now believes Rooney will go on to get more important goals for United, and will be crucial in their race to win the title... "Hopefully - and there's every chance with scoring the kind of goals he scored the other night - that he'll take off."

"Goalscorers are like that and hopefully that's what we're going to see with Wayne. He's got 14 league games, European games and FA Cup games - he could easily get a good average." Sir Alex added. 

With the Champions League, The FA Cup and the Premier League title still up for grabs - big free bet will have Man Utd as amongst the favourites for - the United boss will hope he is proved right, again.