‘Street boy had to come into line’

seasons with his boyhood club – two before his move to Manchester United in 2004 and this season.

DC United are believed to have offered him a £12.5million deal which would see him play two and a half seasons in MLS.

And while he could have played his last game for Everton after failing to recover from a “slight knee injury” in time to face West Ham tomorrow, Moyes vividly recalled the moment when he and his coaching staff realised they had a future genius on their hands.

“When he was only a boy he would kick all the balls away on the training ground and I would get annoyed,” said Moyes. “But one day we had a small eight-a-side game and he scored a goal by chipping the goalie right from the byline.

“It was one of those moments where the staff were looking at each other and saying, ‘did he really just do that?’ It was a moment when time nearly stood still for us.” Rooney would go on to claim goalscoring records for both United and England but Moyes is convinced he could have been equally successful in any position. “I always thought Wayne could play in goal, as a right-back or a centrehalf,” he said. “It was because he was a footballer, a genuine, old-fashioned street footballer. I used to say there weren’t many left. When Wayne was playing for the first team he would go back and kick the ball with his pals in the street. “Those stories are ones we all hope still exist but I don’t know that they do now. For me, he was the last of that type.” Everton manager Sam Allardyce admitted that time was catching up with England’s leading goalscorer. “You have to accept that when you get older as I had to when the manager used to tell me, ‘you won’t play as much as you did before or you might be substituted or you are getting on in years because your legs can’t quite carry you like you used to’,” said Allardyce. “The only reason we stop playing football is because we can’t run any more, There is no other reason, our talent never leaves us. “Our ability, our intelligence never leaves us, it’s just that we can’t physically cope any more and that happens to us all in the end.” Moyes added: “He will always be a legend at Manchester United and respected for what he has done...but he will always be an Evertonian.”