Nothing can sour this move for a true Blue

Wayne Rooney’s return to Everton will be greeted with a dismissive sniff by those who have become obsessed with his decline.

It will do nothing for those who have observed him fade to the fringes of relevance at Old Trafford, a captain who knew he was no longer needed in the biggest games. It will merely confirm what they already knew.

They will scoff and chunter. Rooney is not the player he was, he is in decline, a player in the twilight of a stunning, glittering career trying to postpone retirement. They will poke fun, no doubt, and remind anyone who is willing to listen that the 31-year-old who returns to Goodison after 13 years on a free transfer is a poor imitation of the teenage superstar who left for £27million in 2004.

Let them. For once they can be ignored. Nothing can sour this move for Rooney and that is all that matters. It is not about us. He has gone home because he cares, because he loves the club as much now as he did when he was a boy, because when he left for Manchester United in order to win every available club trophy, it was not as easy as he made it look.

Rooney is United’s record goalscorer, he is England’s too. He spent 13 years at Old Trafford, captained the side and became a talisman for club and country. His head has belonged to United for more than a decade, that is what professional sportsmen do. But Everton are his team, his club, and now he is back there because they wanted him, too. When he unveiled that T-shirt shortly after making his debut as a 16-year-old, with the words ‘once a Blue, always a Blue’ scrawled crudely in felt-tip pen, he meant it. He meant it then, he means it now. The former England captain has turned down more lucrative moves to China or the US because he wanted his three sons to see him playing in Everton blue, to watch him perform at Goodison in front of his people again. He is not the player he was, perhaps, but he is, in many ways, the same person. For once, we should applaud a player who has let his heart rule his head. His motives cannot be questioned because it is the sort of decision every single fan likes to think they would make if given the option.

Rooney has been written off as an elite footballer, he has lost his place in the England squad and spent much of last season looking as if he was searching for something that was no longer there to find. But if anything can revive him, if anything can reignite the fire inside him, it is this return to Everton. It is a move that makes sense, if only you could allow yourself to see things through his eyes rather than your own.