Time for Rooney to let football do the talking
Indeed, but of course these things can work the other way too. Take that young Wayne Rooney: just a few short weeks ago we were all convinced he was on the verge of abandoning an unhappy marriage to jump into bed with a certain attractive neighbour. And now he tells us that, far from going all the way, he’d rather have emigrated than touch same with a 40 foot bargepole.
“Everyone is saying that I was definitely going to Manchester City,” he said this week.
“Believe me, if I had gone it wouldn’t have been in England.”
While he was at it, Roo also took the opportunity to offer that apology which, as far back as October 22, Fergie had been insisting was imminent. Mind, when it came, it wasn’t exactly groveling.
“I feel like I have apologised to the fans,” he said, “but everyone keeps saying I haven’t and, if that is the case, then I apologise for my side of things.”
Somehow, you can’t help suspecting that Rooney’s heart really isn’t in all this sackcloth and ashes stuff and, understandably so I’d have to say, considering that those to whom he is notionally apologising would include the clowns who turned up at his home carrying a banner which read; “If you join City, you’re dead”, as well as those in Old Trafford who’d branded him a “traitor” and a “whore”.
As I mentioned in this space before, I don’t recall too many of these principled club loyalists expressing their unease when the Liverpudlian left Everton to join United six years ago.
Anyway, we’re supposed to believe it’s all water under the bridge now. He’s back, he’s apologised and he denies ever making eyes at City so, as Tony Cascarino — channelling Bertie Ahern — put it recently, everything is cosy in the garden.
Well, actually no. Far from being the end of the affair, Rooney’s on-off relationship with Manchester United is only entering its most interesting and potentially defining phase.
His first start in two months, against Rangers in the Champions League at Ibrox on Wednesday, offered evidence for both the defence and the prosecution. On the positive side, there was that header against the bar, a free-kick narrowly wide, a sublime flick to set up Michael Carrick and then, five minutes from the end, the confident, emphatic penalty to give United their 0-1 win.
John Giles, however, was not impressed, writing yesterday about what he thought were signs of a worrying lack of hunger and old-fashioned work rate from a player who has always backed up his moments of inspiration with an hour and a half of perspiration.
But allowances can surely be made for Rooney being a little rusty on his full return and, for United fans, perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the whole evening was the abandon with which Rooney celebrated what would have been a routine goal for much of last season but which, this term, must have felt a kind of liberation.
Head shaking from side to side, mouth agape, Rooney came on like a horizontal Tardelli before he was hugged within an inch of his life by one fan and a swarm of team mates.
Giles worries the boy-man he once likened to a young Péle may have permanently misplaced his genius. If that is so, the loss will be felt by football as a whole, not just United. But if Rooney does get his mojo back, he can transform the landscape of the whole Premiership season.
Here at home, the slip-ups by both Shamrock Rovers and Bohemians saw this season’s League of Ireland title race dubbed ‘The Battle Of The Bottlers’.
With Christmas still to come, the Premiership is already shaping up to be something similar.
Spurs can be fabulously entertaining but no-one would put their house on ‘Arry’s boys holding their nerve. In the space of a week, Man City can go from zero — or, rather, zero-zero — to hero, and there’s no reason to think they can’t go back again.
Arsenal are, well, Arsenal. And Chelsea are making a soap opera of shooting themselves in the foot.
Meanwhile, United have hoisted themselves to the top without Rooney and without ever playing like champions. As Walter Smith wryly observed this week, it’s not a bad trick.
Now imagine the difference a Rooney at the top of his game could make to United’s season — it would be as if Alex Ferguson had suddenly busted the transfer kitty to bring one of the world’s marquee names to the Theatre of Dreams.
Today, the visit of Blackburn provides another chance to see if Rooney is on the road to redemption. All the words have been exhausted but it still won’t be enough for him just to do his talking on the pitch.
Lots of players do that. Eloquence with the football is what is demanded of Wayne Rooney now.
* Contact: liammackey@hotmail.com
