Rooney is qualifiers' top man

Wayne Rooney is the top performing player in the 2010 FIFA World Cup European Qualifiers, according to the Castrol Index.

The main reason is that he has been directly involved in more goals than any other player in the competition so far.

Four matchdays into the 2010 qualifying programme and Fabio Capello’s England are sitting comfortably at the top of Group Six with a 100 percent record, mostly thanks to the ebullient forward Rooney.

England have scored 14 goals and Rooney has scored or set up nine of those, meaning he has been directly involved in more goals than any other player so far which explains his Castrol Index score of 9.25 out of 10.

Rooney is joint-top goalscorer with five goals along with Belgium’s Wesley Sonck who lies second in the table, only 0.02 points behind the Manchester Utd hot-shot.

The Portuguese midfielder Nani, Portugal’s top scorer in the 2010 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers, makes up the podium (9.11). Belgium, Germany and Northern Ireland are the only countries to have multiple representatives in the Castrol Index Top 20.

The Castrol Index is an innovative way of using technology and statistics to objectively analyse player performance by ranking a player's contribution to a team's overall play in terms of scoring and conceding goals. For more details visit www.castrolfootball.com/whatisthecpi.