Praise, awards rain down on Man Utd ace Rooney

Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney has been receiving plenty of plaudits and praise this week.

Rooney has been named the PFA's Fans' Player of the Month for November.

Rooney has received an even bigger compliment from a former Manchester United teammate who reckons his old pal is 'better than Messi'.

Barcelona star Lionel Messi was a runaway winner of the Ballon d'Or earlier this week, but Carlos Tevez reckons Rooney should have topped the poll of journalists worldwide.

Tevez says: "I have had the honour of playing with some great players. At United I had Cristiano in my time and obviously I have Messi in the national team.

"But the player I like most is Rooney. He has everything. He is complete."

At the start of the season Sir Alex Ferguson backed Rooney to top United's scoring charts and fancied him to hit the 20-goal mark.

With Ronaldo having moved to Real Madrid, Ferguson needed to find another regular source of goals - and Rooney has responded to the challenge with eight so far.

The United boss said at the time: "I don't think the responsibility of getting more goals will affect Wayne at all. He's got the mental strength for all that kind of thing. He's proved that time and time again."