Wayne Rooney's week of self-contradiction is at an end, but the
episode will not be consigned to history that easily. Photograph:
Pascal Lauener/Reuters
When Manchester United sent in the heavy
mob on Thursday to dissuade Wayne Rooney from leaving they noticed
a crack in his determination to join Manchester City. Rooney had
been shocked by the anger his dismissive comments about the club's
lack of "ambition" had aroused among his United team-mates.
Buckling under the strain, Rooney needed friends but the United
players turned their backs. They would not forgive their
colleague's insult in suggesting their side had slipped into
mediocrity. More money from the Glazers and a failure of nerve at
Rooney's end produced the sweetness-and-light statement confirming
his signature on a new five-year deal at Old Trafford. But the
resentments felt by workmates and supporters will not be easily
erased by the most spectacular U-turn in the history of modern
transfer sagas.
As Sir Alex Ferguson and David Gill, the chief executive, bore
down on Paul Stretford, Rooney's agent, in a meeting at Old
Trafford, an unconditional apology was a precondition of England's
leading player remaining at the club. United were at once pleading
with Rooney to stay and playing hardball with the terms on which he
might do so. Later that day, 40 men in balaclavas gathered outside
the player's Cheshire mansion to warn him of the dire consequences
should he defect across town.
"Wayne has apologised to me and the players," Ferguson told a
local radio station when the volte face was completed. "He will
also do so with the supporters." This, after United fans had
unfurled banners at the midweek Champions League game against
Bursaspor calling Rooney a "whore" and promising: "Colleen forgave
you, we won't". Short of planting a new forest in Cheshire to
compensate for all the newsprint he wasted, Rooney must identify a
strategy to regain the trust of team-mates at the Carrington
training groundand fans who will now see his alarming slump,
retrospectively, as proof of self-indulgence.
His problem is that his recent feeble form has come to look like
part of a strategy to get away from a club he accused in a
statement two hours before the Bursaspor game of failing to match
his own grand vision for talent acquisition. By implication, Rooney
was saying some of the recent recruits to Ferguson's squad were not
fit to share his air space. This, in professional team sports,
remains a complete no-no. The outrage expressed by celebrated
ex-United players must have drummed in his brain like heavy rain on
his roof.
Patrice Evra, the team's warrior left-back, was the most
explicit in his denunciation. He said: "If one player in the team
does not trust the others, he should not play in the team. I trust
everyone, I know we can win." Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Gary
Neville, Ferguson's closest confidantes in the dressing room, are
likely to have restated the principle they grew up with: that
individual egos should not be allowed to destroy togetherness.
Even if the senior players forgive him, Chris Smalling, Javier
Hernández, Bebé, Gabriel Obertan, Anderson and even Antonio
Valencia are unlikely to forget the affront. They will feel
Rooney's condescension throughout their time together. They have
seen him issue ludicrous statements first justifying his desire to
flee and then expressing his fidelity to the cause, all of which is
at odds with his reputation for straight-talking and
dependability.
They will see, in other words, a creature of manipulation and
self-contradiction: one they will feel they can rely on less. There
is also the problem of his rocketing salary, which will eclipse
theirs. Some will think Rooney has extorted an unrealistic wage
with his brinkmanship and damaged the club along the way. It seemed
significant that Nani kissed his United badge after scoring against
Bursaspor: a memo, perhaps, to the traitor, as he was seen
then.
Selfish and often myopic by nature, most Premier League players
would welcome Rooney back on purely pragmatic grounds. More quality
in the side equals more chance of winning trophies and bonuses.
Simple. But even here Rooney has a complication. If he returns to
last season's rampant form (pre-March, at any rate) colleagues and
supporters will take it as incontrovertible proof that he has been
half-hearted since August. Conversely, a continuation of the droop
would say United have broken the bank for a 24-year-old who has
already peaked and may even be in decline.
Supporters are no less capricious. United's will be blowing a
raspberry at Manchester City and will be relieved to escape the
stress of not knowing whom the club might find to replace him.
Equally, their opinion of him will be lowered. Their willingness to
embrace a Merseysider stemmed from the obvious sense that Rooney
would run through a wall to wear the United shirt. Will they feel
that now? More likely is that they will remember his arrogance for
daring to tell Gill and Ferguson they were failing to match his
"ambitions".
Part of United's strategy on Thursday was to persuade him he was
about to make an appalling error. Fans and players will probably
feel he already has, with his disrespect.