Wayne Rooney has opened up on the situation that led to his 2010 Manchester United transfer request and the strains in his relationship with Red Devils boss Sir Alex Ferguson.
While Rooney would not see his Old Trafford career end until 2017 when he was the club’s record goalscorer, he asked to leave the club in October 2010 after questioning the ambition of the club amid fears they were set to enter a transitional period.
Both Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez had left the club in 2009, with the Red Devils finishing the 2009-10 campaign second in the Premier League table behind Chelsea and losing to Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
After a relatively quiet summer transfer window in 2010 that saw the likes of Chris Smalling, Javier Hernandez and Bebe arrive, Rooney felt compelled the confront Ferguson about the direction of the club.
“[Gary Neville] brought up – just before [he] left [Manchester United] – in terms of how the club was going from a commercial point of view,” Rooney told the Stick to Football podcast. “You could see what was happening and then I started thinking about the team. Thinking, ‘Right, what’s happening with the team?’ ‘What’s going to happen with the manager because we knew he [Sir Alex Ferguson] didn’t have that long left.
“The club offered me a new five-year deal but then we just sold [Carlos] Tevez, we just sold [Cristiano] Ronaldo and I said to the manager, ‘It’s no disrespect to Phil Jones or Chris Smalling – they are obviously not going to replace Ronaldo and Tevez and I just wanted assurances that it wasn’t going to be another transition.
“I didn’t have the time personally, so I felt it was important to ask the question. Is it going to be a three, four-year transition, or is it going to be we’re going to win trophies now and he told me to get out of his office – so then I got more sense out of David Gill of what the plan was.”
Rooney would ultimately make a u-turn on his decision, with Manchester United winning the 2010-11 Premier League title and again finishing top of the pile in 2012-13, which proved to be Ferguson’s final season with the club.
Wayne Rooney was speaking on the Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by Sky Bet
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