Wayne Rooney has shed more light on how his Derby County colleagues reacted to him snubbing Everton.
Rooney, who recently brought up his first year anniversary in charge of the Championship club, was approached by his old side in the wake of Rafael Benitez's sacking.
After doing a fine job in difficult circumstances off-the-field at Derby, Rooney quickly found himself at the top of the betting markets to become the new boss at Goodison Park.
But after being approached for an interview, the 36-year-old politely declined the offer to return to the blue half of Merseyside.
Rooney, who had two separate spells with the Toffees, has now revealed his fellow members of staff at Derby were "proud" after he rebuffed the interest.
Will Rooney manage in the Premier League one day? Let us know in the comments
Speaking on Good Morning Britain: "A couple of weeks ago when I turned down the Everton job you just see the pride in the staff.
"Once Everton's name come up they're thinking 'it's his boyhood club'.
"But to see the pride in the staff that I stayed and honoured what I said - it gave everyone a big lift."
Recently, Rooney told the Mail on Sunday he sensed the Derby staff were "scared" that he may well leave for the Premier League side.
He said: "I have been here now for over three years as player and manager and you build relationships up with players, first of all as team-mates, then as manager, and with staff.
"Everything I am asking of those players in terms of hard work, honesty, trust, commitment…if I was just to turn round and say "I have had an offer, I'm off", I honestly couldn't do that to the players and the staff.
"I could see once Benitez was sacked and my name was getting linked with Everton that the staff were down and they were scared that if I left, where did that leave the club.
"I know they have been looking to me to try and help rebuild this club."
Rooney has done a sterling job this season in the face of relentless dramas at Pride Park.
He has had to contend with numerous botched takeovers, the club going into administration, a transfer embargo and plenty of other unwanted distractions.
The addition of a 21-point handicap, including two separate deductions for entering administration and a historic breach of accounting policies, should have made the club's task to preserve their Championship status nigh on impossible.
But Rooney, his staff and the ever-reducing pool of players from which to select have belied their worries to move within four points of the most unlikeliest survivals.
Tuesday night saw the Rams beat Hull City 3-1 and it had Rooney purring.
"I’m really happy and I thought the performance was very good," said the former England captain.
“We felt we could cause them problems down the sides and we did that. We asked Festy Ebosele to stay out wide and to try and isolate them and get into one-on-one situations; we did that brilliantly.
“With a bit more care with the final cross and final pass we could have got a few more goals, but I thought it was a very good performance overall.”
