This Wayne Rooney article comes from Robbie Dunne.
The Premiership season is in full swing yet again with every team having played over the weekend. There were predictions made and plans for the
year drawn up. In some cases (Arsenal), the future looks bleak having signed nobody and lost Alex Oxlade Chamberlain until at least November
with a knee injury.
In other cases, the future looks bright (Southampton) with questions put to bed regarding their purchase of Victor Wanyama and the late Rickie Lambert penalty which saw them grab all three points in their opener.
It is however, too early, to start judging teams and how they will do.
The real form will start to show once the transfer window closes and squads get settled.
And so we move onto the business end of the sport.
The lure of a bigger club or the big move in search of first team action. You tend to see the kind of storylines that men in Hollywood would pay top dollar for. The first one being The Wayne Rooney Saga. Big news broke on Friday night that Rooney would start on the bench in United’s opening day game in
Swansea. He then happened to come on and play well (2 assists and a typical Rooney creative flair).
Andy Mitten (who is the creator of Manchester United Fanzine, United We Stand), travelled the 200 miles to see David Moyes’ first game in charge
and he watched closely to how it all played out. Rooney warmed up along the touchline, he acknowledged the fans, came on and played very well.
All sounds lovely?
Yeah, it’s not.
Rooney’s body language was that of a man who no longer feels he belongs. At the end of the game, the team went to the “away” section of the crowd to applaud them for their commitment to following the team. There was no Rooney and the whispers on the terrace grew to mumblings which grew to shouts saying…”Let him go!”
The only team genuinely interested in Rooney are Chelsea and with Moyes claiming he wants his first transfer as Manchester United manager to be
a big one, he is hardly going to let this summer be remembered for the time he sold Wayne Rooney to Chelsea and they won the league. It is a
possibility that they will sell him after next monday’s showdown between the two teams, giving Rooney less chance to do damage directly. As the
body language showed, it will be an extremely difficult task to keep him there all year if he is set to be a disruption. The newspapers didn’t
focus on Welbeck’s double or the 3 points.
They did highlight Rooney’s non-celebration as United bagged their fourth.
It will be a very long season for Wayne Rooney, David Moyes and the fans if he is not sold.
Look for Moyes to increase his efforts to sign someone before the Chelsea game in an effort to mask over the cracks of losing Wayne Rooney. He
has tried Fellaini, to no avail, and time is running out.
It reads like an M.Night Shyamalan script but this, my friends, is the Premier League!
Follow Robbie Dunne on Twitter at @bobdonadini