Simon Barnes in The Times looks at the difficult task ahead for Fergie:
‘The secret, then, is to make Wayne Rooney “as ordinary as he can be” — the words of Sir Alex Ferguson. However, if Ferguson succeeds in making Rooney truly ordinary, he won’t score too many hat-tricks. The fact is that Rooney is not ordinary. He is extraordinary.
‘How will Ferguson manage? What will he do to bring out that desired quality of ordinariness and how can he do it without damaging the still more desired quality of extraordinariness? Should he drop Rooney at once? Bench him? Send him training with the reserves? Give him a bollocking for not getting a fourth goal? Send him George Best’s latest autobiography? Or send himself a copy of David Beckham’s?
‘His handling of Beckham after his World Cup sending-off was a crucial part of the greatest managerial achievement of recent years, the United treble of 1999. But this is not necessarily a template for managing Rooney. The fact is that, Beckham apart, the golden generation were marked by certain diffidence, even meekness. None is a football-transcending star; none is the sort of player that likes to boss a game. Beckham became both — and, as a result, fell out with Ferguson. Like Brian Clough before him, Ferguson doesn’t care for stars. Great players, yes, but not stars.
‘Ferguson knows that if Rooney fails to translate precocity into mature and serial achievement, he will be blamed, just as he gained the credit for all the great football played by his golden generation. And yet you wonder how much management has got to do with it. Of course, good management is essential, just like good parenting. Without such things, the footballer or the child is a mess. But you can’t actually make your child or your footballer into the person, the player, you want them to be. Life doesn’t work like that. The child, the player, also has a vote.
‘And that is ultimately what it comes down to. Ferguson’s input is critical, but it is not managerial genius that will decide Rooney’s future. In the final analysis, it is not about Ferguson at all. It is about Rooney.’
Henry Winter in The Telegraph falls in love:
‘Amid the whirlwind of plaudits for Wayne Rooney, the praise for his technique, finishing and instinctive link-ups with Ruud van Nistelrooy, one especially welcome quality spiced his spectacular debut for Manchester United on Tuesday night at Old Trafford. Rooney was having fun out there. He has brought a whiff of the playground spirit back into the overly earnest world of modern football.
‘Part of Rooney's remarkable appeal, one that United will profit from on and off the pitch, is that the teenager radiates spontaneity and adventure. No fear of losing restrained the teenager's approach to dismantling Fenerbahce's defence. No caution inhibited his play. Rooney is not just a breath of fresh air. He is a hurricane.
‘People talk about all the pressure Rooney is under, the difficulties of making a debut for such an illustrious club, and having to justify a £27 million price-tag. But why? Sometimes we complicate football too much. Rooney cut through all the theorising to remind us that he is just a kid with a ball eager to score, whether growing up on the streets of Liverpool or coming of age on Europe's grandest stages.
‘United's manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, made a smart point when he observed that Rooney does not need coaching. Like Paul Gascoigne, the Merseysider is a natural thoroughbred, a Nijinsky in boots. Again echoing Gazza in his playing days, what Rooney needs most is work on keeping his weight down, not lifting his technical levels up.
‘As he journeys from adolescence to adulthood, Rooney's problems will not come on footballing fields but away from Ferguson's paternalist sway when the club's protective shield is not in place. Rooney, who is not the brightest, has already encountered the dark side of fame and he will doubtless endure it again.
‘Let us hope such embarrassing spells splashed across the front pages do not sour his love affair with football. He is a tonic to the nation. Yet the vicarious thrill felt by millions in watching Rooney enjoying himself against the Turkish champions will not have been shared in all the corners of the country.
‘Manchester City fans will hardly be doing cartwheels at the sight of their neighbours reviving. Nor will Arsenal and Chelsea be exactly delighted at Ferguson's big red machine building up steam again.’
Daniel Taylor in the Guardian gets a little carried away:
‘Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Wayne Rooney's staggering impact at Old Trafford is that the last time a Manchester United player scored a hat-trick on his debut, Norway were in the process of getting independence from Sweden and Albert Einstein was putting the finishing touches to the Special Theory of Relativity. As for the self-proclaimed biggest club in the world, they were languishing in the old Second Division and based in Bank Street in Manchester's factory district - a venue so flimsy it eventually blew down.
‘One suspects the curator of the Old Trafford museum might have to start creating some new space. Whereas Charlie Sagar's hat-trick against Bristol City in 1905 has been consigned to the small print in the club's annals, the most logical conclusion from Rooney's three goals against Fenerbahce on Tuesday is that the 18-year-old is not only destined to join George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton in the pantheon of United greats but might actually outdo them all in the process.
‘That is precisely the sort of statement, of course, guaranteed to make Sir Alex Ferguson go purple. The manager's own sense of exhilaration was tempered only by the inevitable media barrage that followed. Ferguson was almost gruff as he tried, and failed, to deflect the attention from his £27m signing, but elsewhere at Old Trafford there was not only the sight of Sven-Goran Eriksson jumping out of his seat in excitement - most un-Svenlike - but of United's directors slapping each other on the back.
‘Rooney's odds on finishing as the Champions League top scorer were slashed to 9-2 last night, having once been 12-1, and the most exciting part for United is that he might not peak for another four years.’
Glenn Moore in the Independent is similarly star struck:
‘It was not just the stunning execution of his hat-trick that lingered in the mind after Wayne Rooney's remarkable Manchester United debut on Tuesday night. There was also the 18-year-old's preternatural certainty. From the moment he walked out at Old Trafford Rooney had an imperious bearing and awesome confidence which men 10 years older would have struggled to capture.
‘Maybe it was the fearlessness of youth, which top-quality older sportsman, having encountered the harsh professional realities of their calling, sometimes refer to in the same wistful terms they might remember a first love. Maybe, for Rooney has already endured two of the pitfalls which dog his trade - injury and tabloid exposure - it was simply that we were in the presence of genius, and he knew it.
‘Sir Alex Ferguson once noted that not every player, whatever their talent, could handle the in-built pressures of playing for Manchester United, adding that strikers were the most vulnerable. Pre-Ferguson, Ted MacDougall, Garry Birtles and Alan Brazil failed to do so despite being bought for large fees. Peter Davenport, whom Ferguson inherited, and Jordi Cruyff, Diego Forlan and the midfielder Juan Sebastian Veron, all of whom he bought, fared equally badly.
‘Prime among those who have arrived at Old Trafford with a swagger was Eric Cantona but, although he was several years Rooney's senior when he joined from Leeds, even he did not announce himself so dramatically.
‘Football's history is pock-marked with the pain of failed prodigies: think of Wayne Harrison, signed by Liverpool for £250,000 at 17 but who never played in the first team and is now an HGV driver; or a quartet of former United starlets, Andy Ritchie, Mark Robins, Lee Sharpe and Lee Martin.
‘Better precedents are those of Alan Shearer and Jimmy Greaves. Shearer scored a hat-trick at 17, against Arsenal on his full debut for Southampton. Greaves, who scored on every debut, for clubs and country, hit four goals in a game for Chelsea at 17 and reached 100 League goals before his 21st birthday.
‘Both went on to be very good players who approached, but did not quite achieve, greatness. The same might be said of Paul Gascoigne, a later developer than Rooney but similar in many ways.
‘Only time will tell if Rooney can take that next step and join the likes of Pele in football's Pantheon. If he can keep his off-field lifestyle under control, the possibilities appear infinite. The frightening aspect of Tuesday night, for future opponents, was that there were clearly aspects he could improve on. Several times he did not read a pass. He annoyed Gary Neville, who had taken up an excellent overlapping position. He ignored the better-placed Van Nistelrooy when shooting. Yet his run for his second goal, and his headed pass for David Bellion's goal, were among many moments which underlined his vision.
‘As teams learn more about him, and Tuesday's video will be studied from Munich to Madrid, they will attempt to channel his runs into innocuous areas and squeeze his space but, such are United's range of attacking options, opponents cannot afford to concentrate only on Rooney. Only those of us watching will have that luxury.’