FERGUSON: ROONEY IS STILL LEARNING
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WAYNE Rooney has confessed he counts his blessings at being a footballer — otherwise he might have joined the PRIESTHOOD.
The ex-school dunce said the only thing apart from soccer that interested him as a kid was religious studies.
England striker Roo, 23, said of his footie career: “I haven’t a clue what else I could have done. I wasn’t really the best in school.”
But pressed to pick another profession, he admitted: “I always enjoyed RE — so maybe a priest.”
Man United ace Rooney has since shown he was not exactly cut out for the priesthood — after visiting brothels, swearing at refs and getting sent off in the World Cup for going ape at Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo.
He was speaking at the launch of Coke Zero’s campaign to find the nation’s best young street footballer.
For the first time yesterday he showed off his injured left ear — which needed 45 stitches after he fell aboard a holiday yacht — as he drove to pre-season training.
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The load on Wayne Rooney's shoulders can be judged by a comment from Carlos Tevez just before the Carling Cup final. The Argentinian described the combination of himself, Cristiano Ronaldo and Rooney as "the best forward line in the world". Suddenly, a few months on, there is just the boy from Croxteth left.
Since their season ended in the bitter anticlimax of the European Cup final Manchester United have lost two footballers worth more than £100m who last season provided 41 goals. The challenge of filling the void looms before Rooney but it is not one he was ever likely to shirk.
In United's first game since the departures of Ronaldo and Tevez, played in heat and humidity that Sir Alex Ferguson half-jokingly suggested required medical attention just to watch, Rooney drove into the fray, scoring the first goal in a 3-2 win over Malaysia and setting up Nani for United's second. When with England, Rooney has confessed to disliking friendlies, missing the intensity of a fixture where goals translate into points. However, with 85,000 in the Bukit Jalil stadium which erupted even when he clipped the ball into an unguarded net in the warm-up, Rooney could not be accused of failing to give value for money.
Afterwards he accepted that the season ahead, which may just end in a World Cup final in Johannesburg on 11 July, would be a draining one. "With Cristiano gone, it leaves a huge hole when it comes to goals," he said. "We all need to score more, especially me and Dimitar Berbatov, than we did last year.
"We don't feel let down by Cristiano. I have spoken to him since he left. He was a great player for Manchester United but it was his wish to go and I think the club have respected that. We always knew he was going to go sometime. For the club and for himself it was a good deal and the six years we got out of him were brilliant."
Despite the part Ronaldo may have played in Rooney's dismissal in the World Cup, the two were close, bound by an unfettered love of the game. Before kick-off at Old Trafford they would invariably be juggling a football in the dressing-room. He got on well with Tevez, who remarked that playing alongside Rooney was "an absolute joy" and delighted in teaching him Spanish swear-words. Rooney is more reticent about Tevez's departure: "He was a great lad and it was a shame that it [his contract] never got sorted out. I am sure a lot of people will have a lot to say about him joining Manchester City but I don't want to say too much."
Last summer, as the club toured South Africa, Ferguson confessed to having misused Rooney. The United manager admitted he had fallen victim to the temptation of allowing Rooney to play all over the pitch, sometimes because he always craves the ball, sometimes to do a specific job for Manchester United.
Ferguson promised Rooney he would play as an-out-and-out centre-forward, which did not always happen. Even in the European Cup final he was isolated on the left flank, with Ronaldo operating as a centre-forward. This time he will almost demand to go through the middle.
"We haven't spoken about it but I am sure that is where I will play," Rooney said. "Everyone knows it is my best position and, hopefully, that is where I will be. It is less work, you get more chances and, as a forward, that is what you want." Certainly Rooney has developed his close-range work – the goal he scored against Malaysia was a tap-in, an aspect he scarcely bothered with at Everton. Michael Owen's winner, which ensured the match ended with images of United's most unexpected summer signing on the Bukit Jalil's giant screens, was similar.
Owen remarked before kick-off that, if Rooney could improve his game by "five per cent" and if he could cast off the chains of despair that dragged him down at Newcastle, the gap left by Ronaldo and Tevez could be filled. Certainly Owen seems a more natural partner for Rooney than Tevez and until Owen broke his foot in December 2005 they were England's first-choice strike force. "We are delighted to get him," said Rooney. "He is a great goal-scorer, a good finisher and we are all sure he will bring us some goals. I think the move will give him a new lease of life. Over the last couple of years he has had some criticism but, to be honest, it would have been difficult for anyone to have scored in that Newcastle side."
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Here are six words no defender likely to line up against United this season wants to hear: “Wayne Rooney isn’t the finished article.”
And that’s according to someone who should know: Sir Alex Ferguson.
Speaking after the Reds’ 3-2 win in Saturday’s opening Asia Tour fixture, the United boss brushed aside suggestions that Rooney may need to step up a gear to compensate for the departures of Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez.
“Wayne doesn’t have to do anything else except be himself,” Sir Alex said.
“There’s a lot of improvement to come from him – he’s not the finished article. You have to recognise that with young players there’s a bit of road to go down before you see the complete player.
“I’m talking about maturity, authority and decision-making. These are things that will come with time.” -
Sir Alex Ferguson believes it will be another two years before Manchester United see the best of Wayne Rooney.
With Cristiano Ronaldo moving to Real Madrid for a world record £80million and Carlos Tevez controversially joining Manchester City, Rooney is the man most United fans are looking towards as the player who will make their team tick.
It certainly seemed that way on Saturday as, back in his favoured position just behind a central striker, Rooney scored one and created another in the first game of the Red Devils' Far East tour.
Rooney has already claimed the role is where he will be most effective.
However, Ferguson is determined not to place too much pressure on the 23-year-old's shoulders as United begin the post-Ronaldo era.
"There will be an expectation about Wayne Rooney this season purely because he is English," Ferguson said.
"Without question he is the main striker that England's hopes will be pinned on at the World Cup, so that is where the expectation is all coming from.
"But I would like to see the boy develop his game in a lot of departments.
"He is 23 now. You will get the maturity when he gets to 25. Then there will be a more consistent nature to his game."
Ferguson's determination that Rooney will improve seems partly to be a natural inclination to shield the former Everton star from the focus that will inevitably shine upon him, both at Old Trafford and, next summer, in South Africa.
Yet there is also a substantial element of truth in the United manager's words.
Without doubt, last season was Rooney's most consistent, particularly towards the latter end of another title-winning campaign when at times he took the responsibility of match-winner away from Ronaldo.
Yet, in the middle there was a fallow period, the kind of quiet patch Ferguson feels is typical in young players but becomes more of a rarity as they get older.
"A lot of players go on little runs of scoring three or four in a row, then they have a couple of weeks off, come back and score five in a row," he said.
"Wayne has periods like that. He has a little bit to do to get rid of it. That is where the maturity side has to come into it.
"He has the hunger and the natural ability to do a lot of these things. All he has to do is show the maturity to get there."