In an upstairs room of his home office, on the edge of the Ribble Valley, there is a framed photograph on David Moyes’s wall of a time when everything about Wayne Rooney’s life seemed so much more innocent.
It is an old Daily Mirror shot from 2002 as a 17-year-old Rooney celebrates a late winner under the floodlights at Leeds United, a couple of weeks after the more famous goal against Arsenal. Rooney is mid-air, photographed from behind, as he leaps in front of the away end. He is an Evertonian celebrating with his own and, as a show of togetherness, it is such a great picture Moyes kept it on view even when his relationship with Rooney had strayed dangerously close to the point of disintegration.
Whatever their differences, however embittered it became, Moyes always felt supremely proud about bringing through a player of such uncommon gifts.
The Moyes-Rooney dynamic is certainly a complex one given that Everton's manager employed lawyers because of passages in the player's 2006 book, My Story So Far , and the paradox that Manchester United have now appointed a replacement for Alex Ferguson who has successfully sued one of the team's star players. Though the two have subsequently made up, instigated by a telephone call from Rooney, whether there are any lingering politics and whether Moyes has the appetite to keep a player who is agitating to leave, is another issue.
Rooney’s latest transfer request leaves an unappealing sense of deja vu, bearing in mind this is the second time in three seasons he has sought to cut himself free and it is only a few weeks ago that he was employing people to pass on the information that he would be happy to sign a new contract this summer. Instead it turns out the truth is something completely different.
Rooney actually went to see Ferguson a couple of weeks ago to tell him he had endured enough unhappiness and would be better off somewhere else. Ferguson, we are told, made it clear it would be United’s decision, not the player’s, and now Moyes has to wade through all the politics and work out, in tandem with Ferguson, what should be done.
A manager in Moyes's position, trying to establish authority in a new dressingroom, might be tempted to usher Rooney straight to the door and, gauging the reaction of many supporters to the latest development, it is increasingly clear it would not be held against him.
Erratic relationship
The change of manager might actually help to soothe whatever is eating away at Rooney given that a significant part of it stems from his erratic relationship with Ferguson. But then, it is not an easy thing to work out what passes through Rooney's mind sometimes, whether it is all a scam for more money, why he should feel so dissatisfied in the first place, and whether he has the faintest appreciation of knowing when he is on to a good thing.
Ferguson has already broken his usual policy of moving out any mutinous player. Behind the scenes their relationship has not been the same since and the relevant people acknowledge Rooney is not the player he was.
Then there is the scrutiny on Rooney’s physical condition, culminating in a letter being circulated by his lawyers to warn newspapers that any suggestion he was overweight or out of condition would be considered actionable. Moyes has his own stories about the player’s dietary habits going back to their days at Goodison, when he once had to rebuke Rooney for his fondness of sausages and eating past 9pm.
A decade on, Moyes has a new set of problems with an old source of problems.
