Rooney: The £60m wonderboy

Even Arsene Wenger had the generosity to call him "the greatest young English talent I have ever seen".

With such adulation heaped upon his youthful shoulders, inevitable comparisons are made with the young Paul Gascoigne.

Built along similar out-house lines - Rooney is 5ft 10in and 12st 4lb - he has a fondness for sausages and chips and is euphemistically described by the football commentators as having "a low centre of gravity".

But he has impressed fans and commentators alike with his blistering pace as well as an unerring eye for goal - not to mention a maturity on the pitch that belies his years. The one big flaw is his temperament. He has been booked in almost one in three matches with Everton and was seen "losing it" with the referee in Everton's 3-0 defeat at Tottenham this month. When he was made BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year last Christmas, the young Rooney appeared bewildered by the whole experience. It was a wise Everton manager David Moyes who decreed that for the moment his player should not do any interviews.

Rooney is, however, a very rich young man. Although his earnings of about £13,000 a week are way beyond the dreams of his contemporaries on the Croxteth council estate where he grew up, it is small beer compared with what he will get after he turns 18.

Still, it is more than enough to ensure that when he does celebrate his birthday - and his engagement to girlfriend Colleen McLoughlin - he is wealthy enough to book both Atomic Kitten and Blue for the party, which rumours say will be held at Aintree some time next month.

There is even talk of Robbie Williams making an appearance. It seems a long way from Croxteth, where he used to spend hours kicking a football against the pebbledash wall of his grandmother's house.