I was thinking along those lines as well. Rooney might generate a temporary emotional fire-charge and unite everybody, giving us the impetus to get some results.
Who knows, he could do better than that over a longer term but for the purposes of this argument, getting us over the line as far as relegation goes is the only show in town.
It would be an extraordinary ask of him though and a huge burden if we went down on his watch, although that would be massively unfair also.
If it came down to Rooney or Lampard, I'd prefer Rooney. People say sentiment should not play a part, and really it shouldn't, but at least with Rooney there would be that possibility of harnessing it positively over a specific period of time to achieve the necessary before it would inevitably run dry. Football is funny indeed. It might work.