Manchester United’s star forward Wayne Rooney will go into the season opener against newly promoted Birmingham City with a plank of 15 rating points to beat if he wants to remain in the top tier of the FTBL world ranking of strikers.

With an overall FTBL rating of 183.35 points at the moment, Rooney is facing the danger of being overtaken by Liverpool’s Dirk Kuyt (182.40 points), who will have himself a plank of 17 rating points to beat.

Chelsea’s Nicolas Anelka is not far behind, either, with a tally of 181.66 points, while Liverpool’s Fernando Torres has 179.48 points. But the two will face higher planks of 26.80 and approximately 40 rating points, respectively. Torres set such a high plank for himself when Spain trashed New Zealand 5:0 in the recent Confed Cup in South Africa, in big part thanks to his hat-trick. But it is worth keeping in mind that the Confed Cup is rated higher (category 6) than the Premier League (category 5) in our system.