Wayne Rooney is a man in form and he returns to his old stomping ground on Saturday looking to celebrate his 23rd birthday with his 100th club goal.

The Manchester United ace, who celebrates his birthday on Friday, has notched an incredible nine goals in his last seven games and who would lay a football bet against him netting against his old club Everton?

The Croxteth-born striker has scored twice for United against the Toffees at Goodison Park in August 2005 and April 2007 and he is hoping to notch again this weekend.

Rooney said:

For obvious reasons, Saturday is a big game for me.

It is always nice for any footballer to score 100 goals and if can do that at Everton, where I started and at Goodison, where I scored my first Premier League goal, it would be really pleasing.

But it wouldn’t really matter if it was my first or my 100th, it would still be really sweet.

Rooney burst onto the scene at Goodison Park when he was just 16 and managed 17 goals in two seasons with David Moyes’ men. Sir Alex Ferguson was alerted to his potential and snapped him up in the summer of 2004 for a fee of £20million rising to £30million.

On his United debut he laid down his intentions with a stunning hat-trick in a victory over Fenerbahce and Rooney has now moved on to 82 career goals for United.

Rooney is arguably in the form of his life for both club and country after netting four goals for England in the last two games against Kazakhstan and Belarus. On Tuesday Rooney was at his sparkling best as he netted in United’s 3-0 Champions League demolition of Celtic and he will have Everton firmly in his sights.

By Phil Tomlinson

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