He's English, and maybe is the best English striker, I don't think he's the best English goal scorer and he isn't even remotely close to being the best English player.
He embodies what british fans think makes a great footballer.... british fans rarely disagree with the team England play, till after they lose, most fans are wrong.
He's a decent player, nothing more. Utd have built a team around Rooney, while Barca have done it with Messi, Chelsea around Drogba/Lampard, Real around Ronaldo, Bayern around a half dozen quality players, City around Yaya/Aguero/Tevez.
Rooney doesn't even rank amongst those players, Utd have put their eggs in the wrong basket, but most of the league has gone backwards, it was only patently obvious in Europe when Utd were getting shown up against not even top 6 teams from La Liga and just destroyed by Barca.
For me when you proclaim Rooney as your "best" player, and build a team around him, its easier to put in players not far from being as good as Rooney and think you've got another exceptional player in the team. In reality Rooney's only decent and the players who are worse than him are actually pretty poor for a top team, Carrick, Anderson, Welbeck, Hernandez.
If you put Messi into that team instead of Rooney you'd suddenly go.... errm, (asides from RVP now and the retired, unretired, aged Scholes) the rest of the team is so far away from Messi quality wise its a joke. Against Rooney they look not bad.
Basically when you decide Rooney is the best player you can possibly get..... you're setting a ridiculously low bar for the rest of the team.
Utd should have sold him before, they should never have given him 200+k a week, they'll find it basically impossible to get rid of him now, and with him there, almost purely because he's English, the fans won't allow a manager to not play him most of the time.
The biggest problem Utd have for me is, Rooney could make an okay out and out goal scorer, far far better than Welbeck, but Rooney loves to drop deep, he wants to be Zidane/Xavi/Messi/Lampard, he wants to create the goals, be on the ball all game long, he doesn't want to get tap ins or stay upfront, he's just no where near good enough to dictate games, create great chances for others, be a playmaker, he isn't that guy, nothing wrong with that but someone needs to tell him, tell Fergie to never play him in that role and let someone else take it over.
RVP is a fearsome striker infront of goal, but that is only part of his game. RVP behind Rooney, every time, not Rooney playing behind RVP.