James Lawton: Rooney's goal of genius should silence the derision and doubt

There were some who laughed derisively when football men of judgement and great achievement said earlier this year that Wayne Rooney had announced a talent that had the potential to make him one of the greatest players of all time.

There were some who laughed derisively when football men of judgement and great achievement said earlier this year that Wayne Rooney had announced a talent that had the potential to make him one of the greatest players of all time.

The scorn redoubles every time young Wayne does one of his notorious impersonations of Kevin, Harry Enfield's impossible teenager. Or his fiancée makes a new bonfire of hopes that he can avoid the pitfalls of self-indulgence and frittered wealth.

But then the other shoe inevitably drops and Rooney produces a moment of astonishing virtuosity. His goal against Newcastle on Sunday was a staggering amalgam of power and skill, something to put alongside the best of Sir Bobby Charlton, and reminiscent of the extraordinary conviction of Zinedine Zidane in the Hampden Park Champions' League final three years ago when he scored what some considered to be one of the best goals of all time.

Rooney rescued Manchester United from the worst implications of their current crisis - defeat against demoralised Newcastle would have been the hardest evidence so far that they are a team who have lost their way.

But Rooney will always surface in such dramatic fashion. He is indeed one of the great players. At the age of 19 he has a dazzling portfolio of superior goals, starting with his first as a pro, the one that wrecked Arsenal and persuaded Arsène Wenger that he was most talented young English player he had ever seen.

Wenger's grand announcement was headline material that provoked in some quarters the cynical reflection that it also deflected from the impact of Arsenal's defeat. Now it seems like the obvious. Rooney, truly, is a player of the ages. We can only pray that he escapes the ravages of a time of cheap and often laughably inflated celebrity.