The Manchester United striker's ever-improving goalscoring record shows a peculiar long-term failure against Liverpool

Wayne Rooney is fast becoming the irresistible choice for footballer of the year. He already has 32 goals for the season and anyone who wants to pick holes in him should do so knowing he did not get to the top of his profession without having the ability to swat away criticism in the way the rest of us deal with a troublesome fly. But there is still one anomaly when it comes to recognising him as the "complete striker" – and it is nothing to do with the argument about what he can or cannot do with his left foot.

The statistics of Rooney's career are so impressive it is worth a double-take that the man who is already over halfway towards Sir Bobby Charlton's scoring record for England has gone 15 hours and 50 minutes of match-time without finding the net in his games for Manchester United against Liverpool.

In total there have been 11 and Rooney has scored once, going all the way back to January 2005 and a 1-0 win at Anfield in which, true to form, he celebrated directly in front of the Kop. That was his first experience of this famous sporting enmity but in the next 10 games the recurring theme has been of a player struggling to make an impact, drifting in and out of the action and, at times, allowing the opposition fans' hostility to affect him.

Is it coincidence or something more deep-rooted? Rooney is not the golden boy of English football by default and there is inevitably a temptation to dismiss his modest record against Liverpool as a glitch. But then you look at his figures against Everton and a pattern starts to emerge, one that has not escaped the attention of Sir Alex Ferguson. Rooney has one goal in nine appearances against the club where he began his career and, as Liverpool visit Old Trafford tomorrow, the question is this: why does the footballer who is doing more t