Wayne Rooney has been outstanding but great credit must also go to his colleagues

Cristiano Ronaldo was an unstoppable force the season he scored 42 goals for Manchester United, just as Wayne Rooney is proving to be this season. With Sir Alex Ferguson's none-too-tacit encouragement, United's leading scorer is being backed to pass Ronaldo's mark – he currently needs 10 more goals to equal it, or nine if you count the one he scored in the Community Shield – yet in a real sense it is academic whether Rooney takes his goal tally into the forties or not.

United have already scored more league goals this season than in the whole of the last one. After 30 games they have 70 goals, and you have to go back to 2001-02 to see that total bettered. Last season's final total was 68, and the season before that, the one where Ronaldo chipped in with 31 league goals as part of his overall contribution of 42, they ended on 80. So if Rooney or anyone else in a red shirt can add 10 or more goals from their last eight league matches, beginning with Liverpool at home today, the idea that they are still missing Ronaldo will be statistically exploded.

Liverpool won 4-1 at Old Trafford last season with Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard traumatising the home defence, yet, even if the pair are now back in harness and returning to full fitness, it is no secret that Rafa Benítez relies on his golden duo to an almost unhealthy extent. What United have proved in spades since the turn of the year is that they are no longer reliant on Ronaldo. The team have moved on.

The season United most missed Ronaldo was the last one, when they still had the player in body but hardly in spirit. A pale shadow of the previous season's incarnation, Ronaldo still managed a highly creditable 25 goals, but United's final league total was the lowest it had been since the meagre 58 in 2004-05, the season after he arrived when, operating very much a