In a recent documentary made about the Manchester United legend, Wayne Rooney is insistent that he never asked to leave the club in 2013.
After being left out of the team there was a huge amount of speculation about the striker having handed in a transfer request.
But Rooney remembers things very differently. He said:
“I went in to see him and just said: ‘If you are not going to play me, it might be better for me to move on,’” Rooney says. “Then, all of a sudden, it was all over the press that I had put a transfer request in, which I never did. I don’t know what happened and why that came out that way.”
Rooney’s form may be a bit patchy at the moment, but we really can’t imagine how badly the club would have fared if he had left in 2010 or 2013. Suffice to say that talk of a crisis at the club would have been far more deep-rooted and justified.
Even toward the end of Fergie’s tenure Manchester United looked as if they had fallen a little off the pace in terms of their squad and the loss of Rooney could have been terminal.
Rooney: Just watch him go when he gets fit
Thankfully he has since made his peace and it’s easy to know where Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal stands as he has made the Englishman his captain.
And in a wider sense Rooney is seen as Manchester United through and through.
In a recent interview Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said:
‘Messi belongs to Barcelona, Rooney belongs to Manchester United and Muller belongs to Bayern. It should stay like that.
