WHY SAY ANYTHING?

 

According to Wayne Rooney he is extra motivated by the fact that Jose Mourinho is now the manager of Manchester United.

This means, by definition, that he didn’t give 100% when Louis “the loser” van Gaal was in charge. Logically “extra motivation” can only take him to a maximum of 100% as nobody has more than that to give, despite all the pundits who think some players give 150% or more!

So, if he didn’t try as hard as he might have done under van Gaal, yet he was extra motivated by being given the captaincy, where does this put his level under Moyes and, previously, under Ferguson? Again, by a process of deduction, he was only giving about 50%.

In actual fact, Sir Alex had seen through him and realised that Rooney was on a downwards spiral. This would have seen Rooney depart Manchester United had Fergie stayed on as manager. Fortunately for Rooney, (and unfortunately for genuine United fans), Lord Ferg decided to retire and so Rooney was given a stay of execution which still remains.

Quite why van Gaal saw fit to make him captain is anybody’s guess. He brings absolutely nothing to the role as he isn’t vocal and certainly isn’t a leader. He also can’t lead by example when most of his performances have been well below average.

Jose Mourinho will probably stick with him as captain purely because, with the exception of Bastian Schweinsteiger who may not be there for much longer, he doesn’t really have any other obvious candidates.

Leaving the captaincy issue aside, Rooney’s performances over the last couple of years don’t even merit a place in the team and some people are speculating that Mourinho may well try and sell him. This would be an excellent move and would solve a couple of small problems.

Firstly, it would remove the ridiculous amount of money he collects for doing very little. This could be used to pay three more players and, if United were lucky enough to receive a fee, then they could actually use that to buy a useful player.

Secondly, this silly debate about which position is his best would cease. He doesn’t score goals regularly enough to be considered a decent striker and the occasional decent pass doesn’t turn him into Paul Scholes. So his best position should be discovered by another club who can then suffer his moods and tantrums first hand.

I would expect Rooney to fetch somewhere in the region of £15-20million, given that he is past thirty and not very good. He does, however, have a reputation on which he has managed to live for the past few years, this will mean something to any club crazy enough to sign him.

A return to Everton would have been on the cards until recently. Now I would be surprised if a coach as good as Ronald Koeman would want him and Rooney may have better options abroad than in England. He has such an inflated opinion of himself that he wouldn’t want to drop to the lower end of the Premier league, never mind to the Championship.

Remarkably, he could command even more money than he gets now by moving to China where, again, he would be being paid on his reputation rather than his ability.

As long as Rooney is allowed to collect his money at Old Trafford he will stay there. He is from the North-West and his family are very settled there. It’s time to remove the cushion from underneath his fat backside and let him find his way elsewhere. He is a passenger who has been carried for far too long.