ROO’S NEW FIGHT.. FOR A SEAT ON THE BENCH
If Kenwright wins his vanity project to sign the former Evertonian, striker faces a struggle to make the first-team squad let alone a place in the team
THERE’S no room for him at Manchester United or England – and it’s hard to see where Wayne Rooney will fit in at Everton.
The Everton of today are not the side which often finished in the bottom half of the Premier League when Rooney was there.
They are much bigger and Ronald Koeman, along with co-owners Bill Kenwright and Farhad Moshiri, have ambitious plans to gatecrash the Champions League next season. They have rung up their record spend for a transfer window of over £90million and it is difficult to imagine Rooney claiming a regular starting place in Koeman’s new-look side.
Ross Barkley, Rooney’s successor as Everton’s home-grown hero, will barely get a lookin next season in the coveted No.10 role if he stays with Davy Klaassen already on board. Koeman (below) lost patience with Barkley when he did not sign a new deal before the end of last season and also wants the £30mrated Gylfi Sigurdsson in his position. Chuck Rooney into the mix, and he could be fighting Barkley for a place on the bench. Koeman wants his attack to have pace, energy and dynamism – qualities Rooney can no longer boast at 31 with so many miles on the clock. The former England captain was squeezed out at United because Jose Mourinho had better options than him in his attack, whether it was on the right, left, in the hole or up top.
It could be a similar scenario at Everton and Rooney could slow down the play when Koeman wants to increase the tempo.
His form has nosedived in the last 12 months and he limped past Sir
Bobby Charlton’s mark to become United’s all-time record goalscorer in January. His goals have dried up and he managed just eight last season compared to 14 in 2015-16.
Mourinho can do without him and he has made that abundantly clear by the number of times he left him out of big games.
The man who was once United’s star player was reduced to being used as an 89th-minute substitute in the Europa League final to run down the clock on his last appearance for the club. Gareth Southgate, who does not have a vindictive bone in his body, feels he has nothing to offer his England squad and is planning for the 2018 World Cup without him.
Evertonians can see all this and are split over his return.
Some would love to see their onetime hero back in the blue of his beloved Everton.
That’s a view supported by chairman Bill Kenwright, who would love to mastermind the return of Everton’s prodigal son. Others feel he is over the hill and that the club should look to the future rather than the past.
Re-signing Rooney would definitely be an emotional rather than a hard-nosed footballing decision by Everton.
They will refuse to smash their wage structure to land him – while Rooney wants the bulk of the £300,000 a week he earns, including image rights, at Old Trafford.
That’s where United subsidising the remaining year of his £15m annual salary could prove crucial. Cynics could say Everton would be signing him to sell shirts rather than win games.
Koeman may decide to go along with his signing because the board have backed him by landing every name on his hit list of targets so far this summer.
He’s getting what he wants, and so they can have what they want too.
But Everton would be getting the Rooney name rather than the Rooney talent.