How good is Rooney?

Asks Clive Tyldesley after the question was posed in a French football magazine,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/02/23/sfntyl123.xml
I can understand why the question is asked, he is massively influential for us but i have to be honest and say his first touch is sometimes not what you would consider out of the top draw. He is as influential for us as Cantona was, but there is no way he is as pleasing on the eye. When we first signed him he looked like he was going to be out of the top draw, but even though i still believe he is at least as influential if not more influential than anyone else at the club, he hasn't progressed skill wise as i would have expected. I would still take him over anybody else in his position in the world though, when you add his will to win to his talent, which even if not of the very highest order, is not far short, you can't go far wrong.

Newcastle get giddy thinking what might have been after the 5-0 defeat of us in 97, forgetting of course one of the reasons it didn't happen was that their present manager, decided to walk out without reason after a 7-0 thumping of Spurs a couple of months later.
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2259384,00.html

An interview with Nick Cave recently turned 50
http://music.guardian.co.uk/rock/story/0,,2258743,00.html

Brazil's leader Lula
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/conor_foley/2008/02/viva_lula.html