Wayne Rooney is a marvelous footballer. At only twenty-three years of age, the Manchester United and England forward has made his mark as one of the outstanding players in the world game. One only need to glance at his team and individual accomplishments to recognize the talent of the player. He has won two EPL Championships, the Champions League, the World Club Championship, and the League Cup. Individually, Rooney has won a half century of caps for his country along with a plethora of personal honours.

Statistically, he is perenially one of the most dangerous and impactful forwards in the EPL and world game. Since 2005/06, Rooney has played in 111 EPL games, scoring a superb 42 goals and assisting on another 38. Only current World Player of the Year Cristiano Ronaldo (70 goals, 31 assists) and the older Frank Lampard (47 goals, 35 assists) have been more productive in the same period of time.

One had to only watch a handful of minutes of England's recent game versus Slovakia to recognize that Rooney was the outstanding player on the pitch. He scored two goals and played an influential role in the creation of Heskey's goal. Whenever the Manchester United got his feet on the ball, fans looked up in anticipation of something big.

But the reason for this post is to draw attention to Rooney's finishing. If there is one part of the player's game that can improve, it is his finishing. The Times of London recently ran a post in which it called Wayne Rooney the only England forward with a striker's instinct. This of course made my blood boil, my skin turn green and my shirt rip as I became angry. I had to go on a 100 mile death run to calm down - ie. David Goggins. Wayne Rooney is a phenomenal player, but it is simply silly to call his finishing great. He does not have a striker's finishing instinct.

Wayne Rooney in his career has been a remarkably consistent shooter. His goals to shots percentage in his seven years of professional football has never been under 9% and never broken 11%. Just 2% more goals-per-shots separates Rooney's greatest finishing season from his worst finishing season. Managers who pay attention to statistics know exactly what they are getting with regards to Rooney and goals. They expect lots of shots and a low shots to goals ratio, and nothing in Rooney's career shows this theory to be anything but fact. It has been reinforced year after year after year.

If you compare Rooney's shots-to-goals percentage to a world class finisher like Michael Owen, what kind of difference do you expect? Well, I checked Owen back to his days at Liverpool. His lowest shots-to-goals percentage was 19% and his average is in the mid-20s. Alan Shearer, another player who we would call a world-class finisher, was again consistently in the high teens and low twenties in his goals-to-shots percentage (except for one season at the end of his career). Thierry Henry: consistently in the high teens and low twenties (except for his last season at Arsenal, which is maybe why Wenger sold him). Ruud van Nistelrooy: never lower than the twenties.

Rooney plays a different game to these world-class finishers. He takes more difficult shots, but shot selection is precisely what differentiates great finishers from the pack. Rooney is not a midfielder, so you cannot compare him to Steven Gerrard or Frank Lampard, whose shooting percentages resemble his. Rooney is a forward. He gets open many times in a game, takes plenty of shots from up-close and holds his hands on his head in anguish after the vast majority of those occassions.

You get my point? Rooney is no world-class finisher. If he were, his goals-to-shots percentage would be considerably higher or at least show flashes of being higher. But it doesn't. Rooney is season after season an average finisher.