Rooney’s clashes with Ferguson, five probable replacements for striker (Part 1)
Manchester United’s superstar striker and their talisman, the 24-year-old, Wayne Rooney, has dominated the front and back pages of this week. Rooney is again in the news but this time for different reasons.
A few days ago, the English super star forward was caught in the limelight because of a s*x scandal.
This time the gossip is that the Red Devils only inspirational player is set to leave the team. It seems like the only reason for Rooney wanting to move away from Old Trafford is his differences with his legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
Wayne Rooney has thrown Manchester United into disarray by letting them know that he is not interested in signing a new deal and wants to join another club after his association with his manager worsened.
However, it has been reported that Manchester United’s striker has been planning a move abroad since the end of his last campaign and has been keeping his choices open in the light of serious interest from Manchester United’s fierce rival Manchester City, Chelsea, Barcelona and Real Madrid.
It has been also claimed by sources close to Rooney that the Red Devils were desperate to offer him the contract extension at the end of last season but the English striker was in ‘no rush’ to bind his long-term-future to Manchester United.
Wayne’s present deal terminates in the summer of 2012 and even though Manchester were keen to make him the highest paid footballer in the club's history by offering him £150,000 aweek, he was resolute to hold out for more money after his extraordinary form last season.
The English striker spent most of the off season time avoiding Manchester United’s hierarchy as they tried to open talks over a new contract. Talks were initially planned to take place in May but Wayne told the club he desired to focus on the FIFA World Cup, after which he informed the Red Devils chief executive that he wanted a holiday before sitting down to talk about a new contract.
Manchester finally opened new deal talks with their star striker Wayne in mid-August, three months after initially intended, but were buoyant that convincing their top goal scorer of last season to sign a new contract would be a matter of course.
Manchester United was convinced the apparent ambivalence from Wayne’s side was nothing more than a negotiating tactic and that Rooney would be carried away by their financial offer.
At the time, Wayne felt happy at Old Trafford and was also eager to spend the rest of his career in Manchester United, but Rooney was well aware that he held all the aces and was in ample control of his own fate after recording his best ever tally of 34 goals last term.
Wayne’s brashness towards a new deal could be understood as the basis of tensions between himself and Sir Alex, which burst following damaging newspaper allegations last month that Rooney slept with a prostitute.
The Red Devils talismanic striker, who was signed for £25.6 million six years ago, was thought to be furious by his manager’s hard-line reply to the scandal, in which Sir Alex Ferguson dropped his inform striker and quoted it as an ankle injury.
When Wayne publicly opposed Manchester United’s legendary manager, Sir Alex, last week by revealing that he had never been injured and had been training freely all the time, Rooney’s relationship with his manager had reached a breaking point.
Manchester United’s long serving manager Sir Alex has moved on Manchester greats such as Robbie Keane, Ruud van Nistelrooy, and David Beckham after private problems, but always on his own terms.
To be continued in part 2…
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