Wayne Rooney has now failed to score in 1076 minutes of football. You’ll read that everywhere today. In the morning paper, on the Sky Sports news graphics, in the pained expression on your partner’s frustrated face. It’s a worrying stat; almost panic-invoking for those who thew in 12.0 into the ring in the Fantasy Premier Leauge (FPL) game. Rooney owners are feeling a knee twitch right now.

While Didier Drogba fired himself to a three goal lead in the Golden Boot race and earned himself an overnight FPL price hike, Rooney was a merely a willing runner who mustered “an assist” for Fletcher’s goal to partially appease his owners in last night’s win over Newcastle.

Going into the gameweek there was doubts over the fitness of both strikers. Both Carlo Ancelotti and Alex Ferguson had stressed that their chief goal-getters were short of sharpness. Drogba made a mockery of Ancelotti’s pre-season concerns. In contrast Rooney failed to break his worrying goal drought he has suffered since recovering from an ankle injury back in March and we subbed just after the hour-mark.

All according to plan. Alex Ferguson stressed again after last night’s game that Rooney was still “short” and that his withdrawal was always on the cards..

“That was the plan – I told him before the game I’d give him an hour…he is still a little short [of game time] and that will bring him on.”

That at least offers reassurance that Rooney will be a certain starter at Fulham next time out, but the concerns will be that he may only get an hour to impose himself. That might not be enough and Fantasy investors need to know just when he will start firing to reward their hefty outlay.

Maybe good old Fabio Capello can shed some light on that one. He has also recently thrown his hat into the ring on Rooney’s sharpness, stressing his need for games and even estimating an ETA for Rooney’s best form…

“I studied him, along with a number of other players, for three years when I was a club manager, working out how long you needed to find normal form…It was 500-600 minutes minimum. At the moment he has played 150.”

Add last night’s 63 minute runout and we’re about three games shy of Rooney reclaiming the kind of form we saw last term. By the time he faces up to Bolton in Gameweek 6 then, we should have a chance to see some decent returns. A theory that’s somewhat disconcerting for his Fantasy owners who are inevitably eyeing up the extra 0.6 it will take to recruit Drogba as a replacement.

A confident Ivorian up against the Wigan defence still smarting from the Blackpool spanking looks a tempting proposition this weekend. A misfiring Rooney up against a determined Mark Hughes side at the Cottage for an hour, less so. But then as Blackpool demonstrated, we should perhaps expect the unexpected this early in the season.

Rooney’s four goal attempts last night were at least in line with his average per game last season; things could turn around pretty rapidly should United earn a spot-kick or if Rooney can get his posterior on the end of a Nani centre. At the time of writing over 17,000 have seen enough of Rooney and presumably Drogba to make up their minds. It remains to be seen if they’ll regret it.