Rooney hails ‘perfect club’

WAYNE ROONEY has broken his silence on the row with Alex Ferguson that saw him fined a week’s wages and dropped for Manchester United’s recent home defeat to Blackburn Rovers.

He also insisted the United boss remains the most important figure in his career.

The striker called Manchester United “the perfect club” and hit back at Manchester City coach Roberto Mancini’s claims that he got Vincent Kompany sent off in there cent FA Cup derby win over City.

Rooney went on to admit that life in the dressing-room was one of “continuous confrontation”, that he was upset when Cristiano Ronaldo left United to join Real Madrid, and that there is still room for improvement in his game.

Rooney was fined £200,000 (€242,328), one week’s salary, for reportedly not being in a condition to train well after a dinner out with two team-mates and their partners on St Stephen’s Day night.

United went on to lose their next game 3-2 at home to Blackburn. Rooney played in the 3-0 defeat at Newcastle and then made a scoring return with two goals in United’s 3-2 win over City at the Etihad Stadium at the weekend.

“I grumbled about the fine but for reasons that I cannot make public. I have accepted it.

“But when I got back on to the pitch I was anxious (to play well) and I believe that showed,” Rooney said in an interview with Italian newspaper La Republica.

He then proved that he has made up with Ferguson by revealing: “My manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, has given me the most (in football). He is the biggest present life could give me.”

When asked, “Who do you fight with every now and again?” he said: “You can’t always live in harmony. Football is made up of conflict, in all senses. The life in a dressing-room, between players, between us and the coach, between us and loads of people who don’t seem to matter and instead are fundamental, it’s continuous confrontation.”

Rooney was this week blamed for his role in the red card shown to City captain Kompany after just 12 minutes of the Manchester derby. Rooney had waved an imaginary card at the referee after Kompany’s two-footed challenge on Nani. City appealed the card but the dismissal was upheld.

“He (Mancini) claimed that I encouraged the referee to send off Kompany with my gestures. If it were like that, every player who makes that gesture after being fouled would direct the game instead of the referee and obviously it can’t be like that. And the fact that it was a legitimate sending off was confirmed by the four-match suspension and the rejection of the appeal.”

Before then, Rooney had opened the scoring with a superb header from Antonio Valencia’s cross. But it is his aerial game that he believes needs the most improvement.

“It might seem absurd seeing that on Sunday I scored a header against City, but I could still improve on jumping, in the position of my feet more than in the elevation,” he said.

“There are many ways to grow football-wise. You can go slow or, unexpectedly, be pushed into going faster, otherwise you get left behind. For me, there’d be trouble if I stopping learning.”

Rooney this week finished in fifth place in the voting for the FIFABallon D’Or World Player of the Year, with Lionel Messi first and Ronaldo, his former United team-mate, second. Rooney had words of praise for both La Liga-based players. “Messi is scary,” he said. “I will never forget when I saw him for the first time. I was in front of the TV, I think it was 2005. He impressed me to the point that I wondered whether the tape recorder was broken.”

As for Ronaldo, Rooney said: “It was thrilling and an education to play alongside him.

“I was perhaps a little (upset) when he left, but I was also happy for him because he wanted to have other experiences: 87 goals in 80 games with Real Madrid seem like a good enough explanation to me, no?”

When it was pointed out to him that United have won four trophies and reached the Champions League final since Ronaldo’s departure, Rooney countered: “That’s why it’s the perfect club: and don’t say that I’m biased. It’s only the words of others that say I’m leaving, they are just rumours.”

Rooney went on to say he would rather win a Champions League final than the Ballon D’Or — “without wanting to offend anyone in football” — while scoring great goals like the bicycle-kick against City that saw him nominated for the Puskas Award for 2011’s best goal, won by Neymar, was a question of pure instinct.

“You stop thinking with your head and start thinking with your gut. It’s like bringing a child into the world,” he concluded. The important thing is to score when needed, better if the goals are beautiful, better still if they’re important. Neymar’s goal was a beauty.”