Wayne Rooney’s former Manchester United teammate Tomasz Kuszczak is “certain” the Derby County manager will be in conversations about the Old Trafford job before long.
United are preparing to enter their first season under a new boss, with Erik ten Hag due to take over ahead of the new season. The Dutchman has agreed a three-year contract with the club, and if he sees it to its conclusion it will mean he has taken charge of more Premier League games than any United boss since Sir Alex Ferguson.
Rooney is still in the early stages of his managerial career, and was unable to stave off relegation with Derby after their points deduction.
However, after witnessing the likes of Frank Lampard and Mikel Arteta take charge of the clubs where they spent a chunk of their playing careers - with former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard linked with an eventual Anfield return later in his own career - Kuszczak has high hopes for his ex-colleague.
"To become a good manager you need the trust from the football people and I think he got this trust in Derby," says Kuszczak, speaking exclusively to Mirror Football courtesy of bet365.
" My friend is playing there, Krystian Bielik, and obviously [there is] a lot of chat about Wayne and his training and how he gets more and more experienced each day.
" He's an intelligent man, which maybe from the outside it didn't look like that. Maybe he didn't look responsible from his career - you know how Wayne is, he was full-hearted and had many critics, but he's always going to be an icon for English football and he already proved that he's going to be a great manager."
Derby finished 23rd of 24 teams in the Championship, having been deducted a total of 21 points over the course of the season. Rooney, in his first managerial job and forced to put together a team with limited resources, received plenty of credit for giving the Rams hope of survival until mid-April and securing a points tally which - were it not for the deduction - would have seen them finish six places higher and well clear of the drop.
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If Rooney is to take a Premier League job next, he wouldn't be the first top-flight manager to cut his teeth at Pride Park. Lampard led Derby to the play-off final in 2019, before taking charge of his former club Chelsea and achieving a top-four finish before poor results in the 2020-21 season saw him dismissed.
Elsewhere, Arteta has thrived in charge of his former club Arsenal, while Gerrard - now in charge at Aston Villa - has been touted as a potential Liverpool manager if and when Jurgen Klopp opts to move on. And Kuszczak believes there's nothing stopping Rooney doing the same.
The former goalkeeper believes the Derby boss " has got everything that's required to be a great manager". Whether this will guarantee the 36-year-old a shot at the Man Utd job is another question, but the signs are positive.
"Obviously he's a fantastic prospect for Manchester United as a manager, why not?" Kuszczak adds. "I think maybe not now because obviously it's a little bit different and maybe people wouldn't give him so much credit, but Ole Gunnar Solskjaer did very well in the situation and I'm certain that one day Wayne's name is going to be discussed around Manchester United as a manager.
"He needs to keep doing what he's doing all the time. You need to be a good mentor, and it's a good experience for him, how to motivate the lads, and he did that and he did fantastically.
"I think this experience [at Derby] is going to give him a boost and maybe in the very short future we see him somewhere around the Premier League. This is what happened with Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Mikel Arteta, many fantastic players who I had the pleasure to play against, and they're already becoming fantastic managers."
Derby have been in the midst of takeover talks as they prepare for life in the third tier of English football. Preferred bidder Chris Kirchner has spoken highly of Rooney throughout the process, and revealed he has held conversations with the former England star.
"I know Chris has done everything, I was with him until 2:30am this morning in meetings exploring every possibility," Rooney told the media after Derby's defeat to Cardiff City on the final day of the Championship season. "He's put a lot of time and effort into trying to acquire the club and the stadium is the last piece, everything else is done.
"I know there are meetings going on now, so hopefully that will be positive and we can all look forward to an exciting summer with players coming in, players re-signing contracts and the start of this club trying to move forward."
Rooney, for now at least, appears to have his focus fully on helping Derby return to the Championship at the first time of asking. However, if he achieves that feat, Kuszczak has no doubts the former United star has a top-level managerial job in his future.
