The Wayne Rooney paradox: he should avoid any club that wants him

As for Rooney, who is no fool, and who is desperate to succeed, it is hard to write him off as manager just yet, or to say he has definitively failed; if only because every job so far has been a Wayne Rooney job.

Wayne Rooney, who has been sacked as manager of Sky Bet Championship club Birmingham. Pic: Bradley Collyer/PA Wire.

Is Wayne Rooney a good manager? There is an obvious answer to this, three jobs, three years and three abrupt departures into his career as a head coach, the latest that unremittingly disastrous 15-game spell at Birmingham City. And that answer is quite clearly: no. Nothing to see here. Move along please.

On the other hand, any assessment of Rooney’s capacity as a manager has one key flaw, what we might call a Wayne-22 situation, which states that Wayne Rooney has only ever been employed as a manager by the kind of board that thinks it’s a good idea to employ Wayne Rooney as a manager.