‘ROO WILL ADJUST FAST’
COCU SAYS STAR’S EXPERIENCE WILL BE KEY
IT’S normally Christmas we are starting to prepare for at this time of year. But at Derby it’s different. Rooney’s coming.
And just like at Christmas, there will be a circus.
Manager Phillip Cocu is aware of it and prepared.
When he was asked where does Rooney want to play, Cocu answered: “Where I see him play.”
Then he repeated: “It is more where I see him play than where he sees himself playing.”
There was no messing with that statement. Cocu will dictate to Rooney, not the other way round.
In a way the Rooney hype will be a welcome distraction because with former captain Richard Keogh appealing his sacking, that story is not going away and will wrap itself around Derby County for a while yet.
Keogh was an important figure at Derby, one of the pillars on which so many promotion campaigns were built, and if there is a vacancy for leadership then Rooney can fill it.
Owner Mel Morris would like that. He feels let down by Keogh with whom he had a tight relationship.
That boozy night, which ended with Tom Lawrence and Mason Bennett crashing their cars and Keogh demolishing his career, is still affecting the club.
Rooney, no angel himself when it comes to nights out, has the opportunity to take the spotlight elsewhere.
Cocu, 49, right, has been in enough big-time dressing rooms in his playing and managerial career not to let the ego rule.
He’s won La
Liga and played in a Barcelona team that had Luis
Enrique and him either side in midfield and Pep Guardiola as the holding man.
Luis Figo, Rivaldo, Patrick Kluivert
– he got changed with them all. Ronaldinho and the Brazilian striker Ronaldo he rates as his number one players.
In the Barcelona dressing room each player has his seat and on that seat is the name of the player who sat there before you.
So whatever Rooney, England’s record goalscorer and five-time Premier League winner, offers in history, Cocu can match it.
What Cocu can’t allow is for Rooney to be bigger than a team that is beginning to evolve after a sticky start.
Rooney, his spell in the States over without him getting DC United into the playoffs, has been to the Derby training ground and agreed a fitness schedule with Cocu to get him ready to play.
The 34-year-old will return to the training ground for a mini pre-season.
His debut is expected to be at home to Barnsley on Thursday, January 2, a night game already picked by TV. Then the razzmatazz will begin.
Boost
His last game in this country was 33 minutes as a sub for England in a 3-0 win over, ironically, the USA a year ago. From national team cameo to Barnsley, that’s some mindset to reset. “Rooney will join us shortly after his holiday break,” confirms Cocu.
“He will give the team a lot, not only on the pitch, in the training sessions, but also in the games with his experience as player, his quality as a player. I think everyone will benefit.
“We just have to find the right balance in his transition from the USA to the UK, different style of training, different type of games, he has to get used to that.
“We will give him some time to adjust physically to the games played here. But with a lot of experience and cleverness asap layer, he won’t need long I think.”
Cocu, such a classy player himself, has not found it easy to develop his style of football at Derby.
One win in his first eight Championship games left the Rams 19th and with an owner not slow to react, sometimes over-react.
Defining
Now he’s lost only three out of 10 – admittedly one of them the local derby with Nottingham Forest – and when the season kicks off again on Saturday they’ve got second-placed Preston at Pride Park.
It’s a key game that may point to where Derby’s season is going and what Rooney has signed up for.
When the deal was done, it was Rooney coming in to give more fuel to a promotion push, but at the moment Derby are almost as close to the bottom three (eight points) as they are to the top six (seven points).
“Rooney can play for us as a striker or an offensive midfield player,” says Cocu, returning to the point about who is boss.
“He feels good in both positions, that’s what he said. It depends on the connection with the other players, it’s always like a puzzle, the team.
“We have to benefit from
his qualities, he has to feel good. The players around him need to understand him. It is too early to say where he will play for us.”
Rooney, who has an 18-month Derby contract that also includes coaching, hasn’t played since October.
There will be ring-rustiness and Cocu is hoping his own DNA will be imprinted on the team by then to help Rooney make an impact.
“We haven’t got the results we would like but the football we like is getting into the team,” says Cocu of Derby’s progress under him.
“The understanding of the players is better and Rooney for many years, more or less, has played this style of football. So I think he can adjust quite fast.
“The team is now progressing in the development of the football style.
“That’s positive and that’s why I say I don’t think Rooney needs a lot of time to get into the team.
“I am pleased with the way the team is progressing in itself. Definitely. “Not only the football we like to play, but the danger we create too. It’s also about our ‘presence’.
“Now and then we had a slight problem and I haven’t liked it, but we have found a way now to go out and have both, not only just rely on the football. That is impossible.
“We have discussed this a lot and worked on it.
“What we need as a team and a club now is a good streak. That will give us confidence. You saw against Nottingham Forest, a little bit nervous at the start.
“You will lose that nervousness and have confidence when you have a good streak.”
Rooney is encouraging DC United team-mate, Argentinian Luciano Acosta, to leave Major League Soccer and come and join him at Derby.
If Acosta, a 25-year-old attacking midfielder, does that, it will be interesting to see what kind of Derby County he is coming to.