ROONEY OUT
He’ll quit over reduced United role under Jose Offered huge £35m deal to play in China
WAYNE ROONEY has decided to quit Manchester United after accepting that his Old Trafford career is coming to an end.
United’s record goalscorer is unhappy with a reduced role under Jose Mourinho and has told friends he is leaving after nearly 13 years at the club. He is determined to go on his own terms.
A source told Sportsmail last night: ‘The writing is on the wall for Wayne. He can see what’s happening. He’s playing less and believes he still has a lot to give. He won’t want to continue here like this.’
The United captain has a £35million-a-year offer on the table to play in China, where the transfer window closes next Tuesday.
Mourinho last night refused to offer any guarantees that Rooney will stay, saying: ‘Of course I can’t guarantee. I cannot guarantee that I’m here next week, how can I guarantee that a player is here next season?
‘What I can guarantee is that if one day Wayne leaves the club it is not because I want him to leave.
‘I would never push a legend of this club to another destiny. You
WHEN Wayne Rooney was put on the bench for England’s draw with Slovakia in Saint-Etienne at Euro 2016, Roy Hodgson faced criticism for resting his captain.
Eight months on, Rooney’s absence here at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard was again the centre of attention last night, but it was clear the debate had moved on.
We were no longer asking about the impact arguably the greatest English player of his generation could still make for club and country. That has been in decline for some time.
The questions surrounded his future at United beyond the end of this season, even beyond the end of next week. The answers from Jose Mourinho were far from emphatic.
He wants Rooney to stay but cannot guarantee that he will be a United player next season. No promises either that the striker could not head for the Far East before the transfer window shuts in China next Tuesday. The manager’s decisions this season speak for themselves.
Rooney has more Premier League appearances as a substitute than a starter. He has become a cup specialist, a Thursday night man brought out for the Europa League. That will be killing him — as his old team-mate Paul Scholes put it in an exclusive interview with Sportsmail last week.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic has taken over as United’s striker supreme. Henrikh Mkhitaryan has seized the No 10 role that Rooney hoped to make his as he enters his 30s. Mourinho also has Juan Mata and Paul Pogba to fill that role. Rooney might have broken Sir Bobby Charlton’s goalscoring record for United but that accolade has come against the tide of change at Old Trafford.
Indeed, surpassing Charlton’s mark of 249 goals only removed one of the last ties that was keeping Rooney at United.
His influence has diminished. When Rooney missed the last two games through illness and injury — suspiciously unspecified — it passed by largely without notice. Only the China speculation, coinciding with his return to training yesterday, brought the questions that have overshadowed United’s Europa League second leg against Saint-Etienne.
Rooney will miss the game — United are 3- 0 up — and probably the EFL Cup final at Wembley on Sunday. After nearly 13 years at the club, will he ever play for United again? It is a valid question.
This is a slicker, faster team and Rooney doesn’t fit in.
He will have seen the warning signs. It is why he has confided to friends that his United career is drawing to a close and that he is determined to leave on his own terms.
It has always been the way with Rooney.
Twice he held all the aces in contract talks with United and now he can pick his next move with 18 months remaining on his current deal worth a basic £230,000 a week.
It could be China, where the offer of a £35m-a-year contract awaits, although sources close to Rooney insist that will not happen before next Tuesday.
There is also his wife Coleen and their three young sons to consider. The family are happily settled in Cheshire.
Rooney is also known to want to extend his international career and any move to China would almost certainly end that prospect.
The same could be said for a move to the United States.
As Hodgson and Mourinho have both discovered here in Saint-Etienne, Wayne Rooney is still big news.