For those of you living under the rock that is the southern United States, Wayne Rooney striker extraordinaire, wants out of Manchester United. If you don't know about Manchester United then I'm not quite sure why you are still reading. I'd have tuned out by now. There are two general theories on why Rooney wants out.
Theory 1: For the love of money. Basically it's about weekly wages. Right now at Man U the 24 year old makes roughly $140,000 per week (yes football/soccer is for real people). However if he were to switch clubs to say a Real Madrid or Manchester City (god forbid, the powder blue bastards), he could bring in almost twice that. While I feel that this factors into his decision in no small way, I'm not inclined to believe this because of his own words. Which brings us to theory two.
Theory 2: He wants to win. Here is Rooney's statement, "It is absolutely true that my agent and I have had a number of meetings with the club about a new contract. During those meetings in August I asked for assurances about the continued ability of the club to attract the top players in the world. I have never had anything but complete respect for MUFC. How could I not have done given its fantastic history and especially the last six years in which I have been lucky to play a part? For me its all about winning trophies - as the club has always done under Sir Alex. Because of that I think the questions I was asking were justified." Sounds reasonable to me. Rooney, sensing the slight decline of Man U, wanted to know that talent was going to be brought in to better the team. It seems as if that was not promised. This brings me to my thoughts as a fan of this club.
Is this Sir Alex Ferguson's fault? As blasphemous as that question may be, I think it is valid. For those of you who don't know the back story here, Sir Alex has won Premier League Manager of the Year nine times (most in history), he has won the Premier League 11 times, he has won the European Cup twice, oh and he was KNIGHTED for contributions to the game. He has credentials that would make any rapper jealous. Read that one more time. HE WAS KNIGHTED FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE GAME. Granted that game is football, but still. Back to the topic at hand. I truly feel Fergie (stop it. I know what you are thinking) is to blame for this. He is well-known for not allowing players to be bigger than the franchise but this has led to many major losses, the most recent of which Cristiano Ronaldo, we have yet to bounce back from. Our team is old with not enough young talent. I like Anderson but he is like Nick Young, he has no understanding of the game. He distributes too many errant passes that kill possession for us. Chicharito is gonna be a baller, but we already know we will be fine at striker even without Rooney. Our defense looks incredibly shaky even with Rio Ferdinand healthy, but even so, we shouldn't be losing with the firepower that we have up front. Which leaves us with the midfield. Another one of the youngsters is Nani. Certified baller status. I really enjoy watching him play, he learned a lot from Ronaldo and it is really showing through now. After Nani, our two most reliable, and some would argue the only two serviceable midfielders are Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes. They are 36 and 35 respectively. Point is, Sir Alex has let this team gradually get older without having any youngsters in place to take over. He's slipping a little. He has done amazing things for this club and he shouldn't be forced out, but there have been signs. Not only is Manchester United sitting at 4th in the league currently, but over the past seven years some major players have fled the club. David Beckham, Ruud Van Nistlerooy, Carlos Tevez, and Cristiano Ronaldo all left on less than favorable terms with the manager. Although with Ronaldo, Ferguson wasn't upset as much as he was resigned to the fact that Ronaldo wanted to play for Real Madrid.
With all that said, I think it will be good to sell Rooney. Hopefully not to Manchester City but getting some money back and being able to buy some young talent will certainly start to change the downward trend at Man U. Let's just hope the Glazer's open up that pocketbook.
I leave you with the best commercial series ever.
Joga Bonito Brazil
Joga Bonito Zlatan Ibrahimovic vs Cristiano Ronaldo
Joga Bonito Thierry Henry
Update: Rooney resigned with Man U for another five years. This either means his worries were appeased by management and we are going to sign new players to make the team better, or that we have spent our money on Rooney and are just counting on an old team to get younger.
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