Rooney will go down as one of the greatest ever players in Manchester United history, but it seems like he is now part of the club’s past and not the future.
Earlier this week, well known football agent Vincenzo Morabito made some sensational claims regarding the England and Manchester United captain.
The Italian agent has stated that United had offered Rooney to Serie A giants Napoli, but the move didn’t go through because of the Englishman’s mammoth wages.
“I know for a fact that he was offered to Napoli as he can’t go to other English clubs, which could lead him to Spain and Italy,” Morabito said on Italian radio station CRC, as reported by the Independent.
“He was, I repeat, offered to Napoli. While the idea is beautiful, when you look at his €10m (£8.3m) a year salary, it isn’t realistic.”
Morabito didn’t mention when exactly this happened and implies that it could have been this past summer, after the arrival of Portuguese manager Jose Mourinho. The Italian went on to claim that Rooney didn’t have a good relationship with Mourinho and this could see him leave the United set-up sooner rather than later.
“He certainly doesn’t have a good relationship with Mourinho, and therefore his future is far from United, even on loan, to give them more room,” he said.
Morabito is known to be close to many of the top clubs in the Serie A, and is an intermediary between them during transfer deals. He has made many tall claims in the past, but it is difficult to prove him wrong considering his stature in his native country of Italy.
Looking at the basis of his claims though, the Wayne Rooney conundrum is a perplexing issue for United. Contrary to Morabito’s claims, Jose Mourinho has often publicly backed Rooney, even saying that the 31-year-old Englishman was very important to him.
The Portuguese manager may just be playing it safe though. He is still treading on thin ice at Old Trafford and publicly castigating the club captain and second highest goal scorer of all time would probably not sit right with the hierarchy.
However, after a poor run of results that saw United lose three in a row in all competitions, Mourinho did what many predecessors daren’t think of, and dropped Wayne Rooney. The Englishman has since not been an automatic starter for the Red Devils and questions are being raised about his future.
Rooney is just one goal short of equaling Sir Bobby Charlton’s all time goal scoring record for the club. However the former teenage prodigy of Everton has hit a rough patch in his career. His career has gone downhill since hitting the dreaded age of 30, and he is no longer the fearsome attacker that he once was.
This season Rooney has scored just one goal and made five assists in 8 Premier League appearances for Manchester United. These figures could maybe be deemed acceptable if one takes a lenient perspective, but the stats perhaps don’t reflect just how much Rooney has declined.
While his intelligence may still be up there with the best, his pace and physical ability has often seen many attacking plays by United compromised. On top of his woes on the pitch, there’s also the financial details for the club to worry about.
Rooney is rumored to be currently earning £260,000 a week at United and his contract runs till the summer of 2019. It has become abundantly clear that Rooney does not in any way represent the future of United, which means that the club will have to pay more than a million pounds a month over the next two and a half years for a player who is not a guaranteed first team starter.
In this regard, it is very likely that the Red Devils are looking to offload the veteran Englishman. While the likes of Napoli will not be too keen on taking him in, the Chinese Super League provides a unique choice for United to perhaps get a good deal out of Rooney.
