ROONEY CAN BE

Boss tells striker to stay and join greats

IT’S perhaps appropriate that, in the city of his birth, Wayne Rooney will tomorrow make a fresh start as a Manchester United player.

If it had all worked out differently, Rooney could have been lining up in Prague last night to play for Chelsea in the UEFA Super Cup. Instead the England striker will walk out in the familiar surroundings of his native Merseyside ready to face Liverpool still a United man.

If his performance against Chelsea at Old Trafford on Monday night suggested Rooney had finally accepted he would not be moving to Stamford Bridge, the arrival of Samuel Eto’o in west London simply confirmed it.

At Carrington yesterday David Moyes dismissed suggestions he was relieved the issue is finally over. After all, the United manager has remained adamant from the outset that Rooney would not be sold. But there is little doubt it has had a destabilising effect on Moyes’ first few months in charge.

The hope now is that Rooney might even agree a new contract with United and Moyes, for one, sees signs that he can be persuaded to stay and write his name alongside Old Trafford legends like Sir Bobby Charlton.

‘I do think there is a situation where Wayne could go on to emulate some of the greats at Manchester United with the goals he can score,’ said the United boss.

‘The challenge is there. We’ve set it down for him. “Can you put yourself in this position?” And I thought by the crowd reaction against Chelsea they’d all be happy if that was the case as well.

‘He has already reached great heights but he has got an opportunity to reach the heights of…I wouldn’t say an immortal but, you know, people like Bobby Charlton, as high a pedestal as anyone at this football club can get on.’

While few doubt that Rooney would rather have gone to Stamford Bridge, his performance against Jose Mourinho’s side showed he is committed to the United cause.

Moyes believes it was the club’s refusal even to countenance a deal with Chelsea that eventually convinced Rooney he had little option but to accept that his future lay at Old Trafford.

‘I think the factor was Manchester United saying they weren’t going to sell him,’ added the manager. ‘When he realised that, he knuckled down. Hopefully now, Wayne is going to get back to the way everybody knows he can play.

‘A lot of the stuff he did the other night was very good. He maybe had to come back and show people what it meant and I thought he did that with his work-rate and what he did for the team. He was as much a team player as an individual.

‘I’ve been impressed by how he’s gone about it. Ever since day one, since the first day we started back at pre-season, his training has been great. For all the stuff that was supposed to have happened, I’ve never had a minute’s problem with him. He wasn’t a bad lad, he was getting on with his work and, mentally, I felt he was in a pretty good place.’

Rooney is not the only one returning to Merseyside, of course. It will be Moyes’ first game back since he left Everton after 11 years to succeed Sir Alex Ferguson.

Not once did he manage to beat his rivals in 12 attempts at Anfield, losing five games and drawing seven. He was always the underdog, however. Tomorrow it will be a different ball game. He said: ‘I go with a different situation. I go to Anfield with the champions. I go there certainly with a different group of players.

‘Liverpool had bigger finances than Everton did but, when it came to the game, it was 11 versus 11. That’s what people judged us on and that’s why the record there is poor. We couldn’t quite compete with them. We did everything we could to try to catch them up.

‘It was down to Liverpool having really good teams with people like Xabi Alonso, Mascherano, Torres at his pomp and Steven Gerrard.

‘Everybody tells me about the big rivalry between Liverpool and United and it was certainly there when I was at Everton. I would think I’ll get as good a reception as I did before! It’s always been a difficult place to go.’