Former Manchester United captain Wayne Rooney believes that the Red Devils are not going to be able to keep pace or catch up with the country’s newest trendsetters Manchester City next season, let alone the current one.

Rooney who is the highest goal scorer for Manchester United spent 13 years at Old Trafford. United currently trail their cross town rivals by 13 points in the title race.

The former England captain who was speaking on Sky Sports' Monday Night Football programme believes that Pep Guardiola’s City have raised the bar considerably and even compared them to the mighty Barcelona under Pep.

"In terms of catching Manchester City, certainly not this season and -- if I'm being perfectly honest -- it'll be very difficult next season if Manchester City keep playing the way they are playing," Rooney said. "They are almost getting to the level Barcelona were at four or five years ago."

"It's not nice to say, but if you can't enjoy that style of football and that way of playing you won't enjoy football," he said. "It's great to watch. It's almost perfect football at times.

"I think Guardiola is putting the foundations in place of emulating that Barcelona team. You can see they're well on the way to doing that."

The forward, who has now moved back to his boyhood club Everton, applauded his former employers’ efforts in bringing the Chilean captain Alexis Sanchez to Old Trafford and opined that the former Arsenal man has the killer instinct that United have been missing.

"For me he is the perfect player for Manchester United."

"He's got aggression, passion, desire. You can see he is a winner," Rooney added. "That's what Manchester United have lacked."

For Everton, Rooney was an unused substitute as the Toffees were thrashed 5-1 at Arsenal on Saturday, and he said he found it painful viewing.

"I said at half-time to the lads I was actually embarrassed sat on the bench because the performance was not good enough for what we want, and how we know we can play," he said.