CSKA Moscow vs Manchester United: On the verge of turning 30, Wayne Rooney hopes to keep improving

This will be quite a week for Wayne Rooney.

Last Saturday, he scored his first goal at Goodison Park in eight years on the day Howard Kendall, who managed the club he was born to support to its greatest heights, died.

On Sunday, there is the Manchester derby, a fixture in which he has scored more goals than any other United player. The day before, he will turn 30. Tonight, there is a Champions League fixture in Moscow, the city where he won the European Cup.

Thirty is a strange age for a footballer, especially one who has been playing in the Premier League since he was 16. You look back on what you have achieved and look forward to what you might do once the football stops.

“It’s a big birthday in anyone’s life,” he said. “But I still feel young enough, that I have a lot of years in front of me. I have had no major muscle injuries and it is not the milestone it used to be. As players, we have the support of the sports scientists and the guys who help us in terms of training and preparation. To me, it’s still a fairly young age.”

The United captain is sitting by the emergency exit of an Aeroflot A321 as it flies east towards Moscow and an encounter with CSKA.

Seven years ago, in driving rain at the Luzhniki Stadium, they had overcome Chelsea after an attritional final, in which Rooney won the European Cup for the first and, thus far, only time in his career. Considering he and United have been tilting at the trophy more or less continuously for a decade, it is a just about adequate return.

“I didn’t take part in the penalty shoot-out with Chelsea, I just watched it,” he said. “It is worse watching rather than knowing you are taking one because you are just sat on the sidelines without any influence. But it ended great. It was a long day, the match kicked off late, it went to extra time and it wasn’t great weather.”

There are not many among United’s squad now who know what it is to win a European Cup: Rooney, Michael Carrick, Bastian Schweinsteiger. All men who are 30 or on the edge of being 30. If they are to get close to another European final, something they have not threatened to do since Lionel Messi’s brilliance confounded them at Wembley in 2011, all three are likely to be central to Louis van Gaal’s strategy.

“We have to try to use the knowledge we have gained over the years to help the young lads coming into the team,” said Rooney. “It is great to have young players who have never been to a Champions League final and talk to them about what it feels like and to see that hunger in them. There is a good blend in this squad and I don’t think it will be too long before we reach the heights.

“I know that in the last few years we haven’t been good enough. There have been big changes over the last few years and now we are starting to get back to a good rhythm.”

Van Gaal was already looking beyond CSKA to the task against the Premier League leaders City, whose home Champions League fixture tonight he contrasted with United’s seven-and-a-half-hour round trip to Moscow, which would give the visitors a “huge advantage” at Old Trafford on Sunday.