From undroppable Premier League icon, to unwanted United bench warmer at the age of 31, it’s no surprise that rumblings of Wayne Rooney’s Old Trafford departure have been commonplace on the back page of many a tabloid this season.
Indeed it seems that Wayne Rooney is set for a big Manchester United goodbye if the Daily Mail are correct in their assumptions.
The paper has it that the Champions League winner has already confirmed to his fellow team-mate that he has decided to move on in the summer, a decision no doubt boosted by the fact that he has already claimed the club’s top scorer record earlier on this season from Bobby Charlton.
After questions over his overall game impact, along with a series of niggling injuries, Jose Mourinho has relegated the Red Devil’s icon to purely a backup, with the forward starting just 9 games this season, shadowing the inimitable Swede Zlatan Ibrahimovic – a player four years his senior.
Whilst a late career swansong with any of the various super rich Chinese Super League teams seems unlikely given the lack of transfer development in January, a move rather difficult to imagine given the culture shock for he and his family, a handful of Premier League clubs would still love to have a player with the talents of Wayne Rooney in their squads.
Of course, a large deciding point for sides, such as his boyhood club Everton, will be if the former England captain is willing to budge on his astronomical £150,000 weekly wage.