Selling Wayne Rooney - A step ahead for Manchester United??
It is a fact that Manchester United’s decline without Wayne Rooney will be irrefutable but if he decides to go, this will not be the first time in club's history that a marquee name has left.
Manchester United’s history is littered with such instances when players like David Beckham, Roy Keane and Ruud Van Nistelrooy left the club after falling out with the manager and yet the club bounced back. So, there is no reason that they can’t bounce back
if Rooney walks out on the club.
Only the season before last, Cristiano Ronaldo left for the sunshine in Madrid and the club still pushed the title fight to the last day and eventually lost by only one point so the situation isn't all the glum.
United is not a squad based around Rooney and although, he plays a massive part in whatever United do good on the pitch but still, no one is ever irreplaceable.
United can in fact take a leaf out of Juve’s book, when they had sold Zidane to build a whole new team.
It was in the summer of 2001 when Juventus were contemplating on a third successive trophy less season and a group stage exit in the Champions League. But, when Real Madrid came calling for their best player with a massive wedge of cash, did they hold on
to him? No, they did not.
They did not hold on to a player who was destined to be a legend in the game, whose slick skills and trickery demanded a bigger canvas and a mantelpiece full of medals and accolades.
They sold the mesmeric Zidane to Real for a world record fee at that time and used the money from the sale to buy Gianluigi Buffon, Pavel Nedved and Lillian Thuram. They inherited a team built around one man, sold that man and bought a whole new spine of
a team. And the best thing about all that was they did not fall apart after selling their talismanic midfielder. In fact, they responded with back to back Serie A titles and an appearance in the Champions League final in between.
So, it is not hard to see why Manchester United can’t do the same.
Rooney has been under Sir Alex tutelage for years now and even the wily old Scott can be forgiven for wondering if the player is being burnt out in front of his own eyes. If he can sell his star striker for a decent amount of money and invest in new players,
the degree to which his side will improve will simply outweigh Rooney’s loss.
But the big question here is that if the manager will actually get the revenue generated from the sale to spend on new players or will the money go straight to serve the club’s huge debt? Even if he gets the money in January, who will be available in the
market in the mid-season? By January, United may well be out of the title race; dropping 10 points in the first 8 games is by no means fatal but the truth of the matter is that their performances on the pitch have been inconsistent and slapdash.
If United were loaded with cash they would have bossed the transfer market no matter what, like they have always used to but that is not the case anymore and it is definitely not impossible to conclude that the club is severely hampered by its 790 million
pounds debt.
Ferguson knows that the problem needs to be addressed before a spiral decline sets in and few in the world can doubt his ability to turn things around but if the Scott overlooks the problem now and decides not to invest and United finish outside the top
4 in the Premier League then only God knows where this would take them financially.
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