Transfer Balls: Manchester United make Wayne Rooney an offer he can refuse as Chelsea mafia pounce
TRANSFER Balls: How’s Wayne Rooney’s summer panning out? He’s been the subject of a routine failed big-money bid from Arsenal, injured his leg in Bangkok (innocent – it was entirely innocent; he can explain everything…) and eaten a Pot noodle at Glastonbury. Now read on..
As Pies reports:
Speaking in Bangkok, Manchester United manager Moyes has reportedly told Rooney that he will only be considered a vital player at United if “we had an injury to Robin van Persie,” also hinting that the uppity forward is on a ’12-month trial’ of sorts:
“Wayne can play up on his own, he can play dropped in. Overall my thought on Wayne is, if for any reason we had an injury to Robin van Persie, we’ll need him.
Ouch!
“I want to be able to play the two of them (Rooney and RVP), I want to use Danny Welbeck and Javier Hernández as well. I want to give myself as many options as possible.
“It’s going to be a time to see how I work with Wayne. Maybe in a year’s time we might have to look at something else.
“The first year, I have to get a chance to see the players and how best to use them.
“I’ve got to ensure it’s not just him and we don’t concentrate on him. Manchester United isn’t about Wayne; Manchester United is about the team, the club.”
The best English footballer in the Premier League is on trial at Moyes’s United.
This is all coming a week of so after United ‘s executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward told the Observer that the club “wouldn’t be afraid” to let Rooney’s contract (which runs for another two years, at £250,000-a-week) dwindle to nothing.
Basically, as penance for his little tantrum, Rooney’s now got to prove to the club that he’s worth a quarter-of-a-million quid every seven days, or he can go ahead and waddle out of town.
Nice to see the club standing up to the player (or, more accurately one would suspect, his agent) for once and actually challenging them to earn their abhorrently swollen wages.
In other news:
Chelsea’s Eden Hazard says Rooney’s ace and will loved so very much at Chelsea, telling Sky Sports:
“Rooney would be a brilliant signing. He’s a great player who has the experience and he’s still only young, at 27. He’s got a few years left to play. But it’s not up to me. It’s not my decision.”
No, the decision is for Rooney, United and a banker in a Siberian vault. Hazard’s job is to do the modern thing and tap up the wanted man. It’s a tactic we can thank Barcelona for bringing to the game.
Elsewhere, former Manchester United striker Andrew Cole believes Wayne Rooney will stay at Old Trafford this summer.
Martin Keown agrees in the Mail:
Going to London is a gamble…. He’d have to uproot his whole family. He’s best to stay where he is.
Does Keown suppose Rooney in his hob nail boots and whippet-hair jumpers will be preyed upon by Cockney geysers in The Smoke? ~One word Coleen Rooney: shops.
London’s calling…
But that’s not all. Martin Samuel says Chelsea’s pursuit of Rooney is something to do with the Mafia:
Anyone who has watched the film The Godfather will recognise what is going on at Manchester United right now. It has its echo in the scene where Michael Corleone tries to buy Moe Greene out of his Las Vegas hotel and casino.
‘First of all, you’re all done,’ the brash Greene informs him. ‘The Corleone family don’t even have that kind of muscle any more. The Godfather’s sick, right? You’re getting chased out of New York by Barzini and the other families. What do you think is going on here? You think you can come to my hotel and take over? I talked to Barzini — I can make a deal with him, and still keep my hotel.’
Would Jose Mourinho, in particular, have tried it on with United over Wayne Rooney when Sir Alex Ferguson was in charge?
Mourinho left Chelsea on 20 September 2007. In June 2007, Rooney was handed the number 10 shirt, last worn by Ruud van Nistelrooy. In 2006, Rooney signed a two-year contract extension that tied him to United until 2012. Chelsea’s line was being led by Didier Drogba. Now, in 2012, Mourinho’s back to coach a post-Drogba Chelsea and Rooney’s just been told to warm the bench and bide his time.
Samuel ignores these changes in fortune and answers his own question:
Would he hell.
Rival clubs now view United as the equivalent of the Corleones with the Don laid low by an assassination attempt.
Bids of Van Persie? None.
Bids for David de Gea? None.
Bids for Rio Ferdinand? None.
And those are the United players picked for the PFA’s team of the 2013 season.
They see them as weakened, vulnerable. David Moyes is Michael to Mourinho’s Moe Greene. He just isn’t taken seriously as a Godfather. Not yet…
Now it is Mourinho’s turn to demonstrate who is the new boss, by refusing to go quietly over Rooney.
Moyes is equally insistent the player will stay. There can be only one winner here.
Of course, the shark-eyed Michael proves even more ruthless than his father.
In the climactic requiem sequence, he has Greene shot. Will Moyes prove as unyielding?
If Moyes and Mourinho are the Godfathers where does that leave Roman Abramovich and the Glazer family, owners of Chelsea and Manchester United, respectively? Don’t these Jewish immigrants who made it huge in New York and Siberia do the hiring and, erm, firing?
More transfer balls every day…
Posted: 16th, July 2013 | In: Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
