Manchester United great Wayne Rooney has revealed that Sir Alex Ferguson told him to stop ‘working too hard’ as he transformed his approach to scoring goals.
Rooney’s versatility allowed him to play in a number of roles during his 13-year stint at Old Trafford, but the legendary Scot needed him to alter his methods early on in his United career so he was effective in the No.9 role.
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Rooney, who scored 253 goals in 559 appearances for the Red Devils, was asked by Ferguson to conserve his energy levels when playing as a striker.
“You learn little things along the way,’ Rooney wrote in his column for The Times.
“The best advice I received was from Fergie. He’d say ‘you’re working too hard’ and at first I thought, ‘What do you mean? Isn’t that what you want?’
“But I used to try to run as hard as I could for 90 minutes and in the last ten minutes be tired.
“The manager wanted his strikers to keep a little bit in the tank, because that match-winning chance might not arrive until the 90th minute.”
Rooney, who is currently player-coach at Championship outfit Derby, also revealed that he focused on shooting situations when he was fatigued.
“I used to practise finishing when I was tired,” he explained.
“At the end of a training session I’d get a ’keeper and Eric Steele, the goalkeeping coach, and do five sets of six: a little sprint then a shot.
“By the fifth and sixth rep of each set, you were out of breath – and if you learn to finish when you’re tired, it’s so much easier when you get a chance and you’re normal.”
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