rooney

Gary Neville might have said it best: football is a cynical industry, and Manchester United is a cynical club. It’s something about the bravado and thirst for success. Past greats are celebrated, but the club moves on. Better players than Wayne Rooney have left Old Trafford; better loved players too. Gone, not forgotten, but with a focus shifted quickly. The king is dead; long live the king. Yet, history will also record the new Evertonian as one of the finest to have played for the club.

Read More

To go, or not to go that is now the question. From the moment Jose Mourinho called time on Wayne Rooney’s special privileges at Manchester United the clock began ticking on the Scouser’s Old Trafford career. The inevitable is nigh. Now the club, although not publicly, is pushing Rooney towards a more rapid exit than previously imagined. China calls; will Rooney pick up?

Read More

Picture the scene. Sir Alex Ferguson at his masterful best. Bracketed by journalists anticipating Manchester United’s October 2010 Champions League encounter with Bursaspor, the Scot feigned shock and disgust at Wayne Rooney’s overnight accusation that United, then 132-years-strong, 18-times English league champions, and three times kings of Europe, lacked the ambition to house Rooney’s talents. Ferguson was pitch-perfect in the rejoinder; Rooney’s agent, Paul Stretford, held firm that it was time to move on. Manchester City called with the big bucks Rooney had always craved. In the end the Reds bowed to Rooney’s demands and the former Evertonian was awarded the first of two massive contracts in the past six years. But what if the Scouser had moved on…

Read More

There was just a hint of entitlement in the statement. Understandable, perhaps, from a player who has recently become his nation’s record goalscorer; one standing on the verge of achieving a similar feat at club level. Yet, in declaring that he doesn’t ‘need to fight for his place’ Wayne Rooney, a 30-year-old suffering the third year of diminishing returns, has pushed that envelope a little far. After all, there are now better players in almost every position Rooney might covet, for club and country. It is a critical juncture for a fading star.

Read More

No other player has epitomised Louis van Gaal’s second season at United quite like his captain. The Dutchman’s side staggered through the latter part of 2015, with December becoming statistically the worst month in the club’s long history. And, much to the chagrin of United’s support at large, the manager has simply refused to go away. Much of that analysis can be directly applied to Wayne Rooney.  Read More