Will Rooney regret mid-table jibe?

IT WAS not exactly in the Groucho Marx school of put-downs.

It did not quite have the ring of, “I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.”

But there was a delayed sting to Wayne Rooney’s summation of Manchester City’s season so far which will add considerable spice to the Manchester derby on Sunday.

“It doesn’t irritate us that City are getting all this publicity,” said Rooney. “If they were winning trophies it would irritate me, but while they are still lingering in mid-table I am not really too bothered about it.”

Ouch!

You can be sure that particular sentence will be pinned to the home changing room at Eastlands this weekend when City take on United.

You can be sure it will have tweaked the antennae of City manager Mark Hughes. And you can be certain the rest of football will be watching a match which pitches the newly-created richest club in the world against the most famous club on the planet.

I have never been a supporter of the foreign takeover of the Premier League. Clubs such as West Ham have been destabilised. Too many others have been saddled with huge debts which leave them scarily vulnerable in a world in which banks are failing and institutions such as Woolworths going to the wall.

Mike Ashley struggles to sell Newcastle, the future of Portsmouth is in doubt and what would happen to Chelsea if Roman Abramovich suddenly walked away?

Yet the investment of Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi in Manchester City is potentially the most exciting development since the Premier League launched in 1992.

The sheikh’s £340bn fortune, as compared to Abramovich’s £12billion, makes him immune from recession.

It means there should be plenty of action in the January transfer window. And if he sticks by Hughes, as he says he will, it means that sooner, rather than later, competition at the top end of the league can only become a whole lot sharper.

THE Premier League needs that more than anything. It needs Aston Villa, with a shrewd manager in Martin O’Neill and a fine, young British-based squad, to kick on and challenge Arsenal for a Champions League place.

It needs teams to emerge from the scrum of mediocrity which sees just eight points separating the bottom 14 clubs while Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United gallop over the horizon before the Christmas lights are turned on.

Rooney is right. Currently, City are in mid-table. They should be anonymous.

Yet they are in the minds of some of the world’s top footballers. The agent of Sevilla’s Brazilian striker Luis Fabiano claims to have been approached by City.

Fellow Brazilian Kaka admits he would like to play in the Premier League and says: “I have a lot of friends who are playing there so I am watching some games. I speak with Robinho sometimes about Manchester City.”

Kaka and Robinho and Fabiano at City? It is an alluring thought, but Sheikh Mansour must trust his manager, whose instinct will be to blend the odd superstar with men of more conservative talent but who possess the industry which English football demands.

As it is, United go into the derby match with Rooney saying: “It will be nice to show them who are the kings of Manchester.”

It is a dangerous boast. No king rules forever.