Say what you want Sir Alex, I don’t believe you

What a furore, what a circus, what a week.

When the news arrived that Wayne Rooney was on the bench for Tuesday’s match against one of the World’s biggest clubs I have to admit it made me laugh.

Only two weeks previous I’d posted a piece about Sir Alex settling a score with Rooney over his shennanigans back in 2010. The post was met with disbelief and tangible support for a man whose work ethic, goals and apparent remorse has won back the Old Trafford faithful, or at least those who frequent RedRants anyway.

If you haven’t read the post on how I believe Ferguson has positioned himself to finally avenge a demon then feel free to cast your eye over it.

In essence the piece refers to other incidents where players have crossed Sir Alex’s line thus seeing them ultimately head for the exit door. My opinion is Sir Alex will ONE DAY settle the score with Wayne and, no matter how clever his banning of two journalists who wrote about Rooney’s departure this summer from his press conference until they apologise was, there’s no doubt in my mind that Sir Alex took the Rooney incident personally and WILL find his revenge someday, that’s the man he is and he’s proved it. A leopard doesn’t change its spots remember.

According to Sir Alex himself “There is absolutely no issue between Wayne Rooney and I”. That’s a lie.

Think back to Madrid away. Rooney was asked to perform a role out wide on the left, a role he’s been asked to perform before only this time he quite obviously wasn’t happy about it. Rooney strolled through the game with little appetite for it and his attitude was written all over his shrugged shoulders. It may have been an unusual lack of effort from Rooney but Sir Alex won’t afford him the luxury of behaving like this for a single minute of his £250k p/week salary he held the club to ransom for and it was all he needed to look to others in the 2nd leg.

Three weeks later he’s a sub who may arguably have been an un-used sub had the Turkish referee not sent Nani off. Imagine the talk then!?

The discussion raged on Twitter and on RedRants (and no doubt elsewhere) all week but where does all the support for Rooney come from? Are United fans really as fickle as every other football fan? Have we really forgiven him?

Apparently “Rooney was only saying what the rest of us were thinking” back in 2010 according to one RedRants follower – Really? I don’t remember ever thinking United were not ambitious.

According to one RedRants commenter “I think Ferguson is mature enough to bury the hatchet. I don’t see him seeking some kind of revenge or retribution against Rooney for something done years ago. That would be so juvenile” – We’re talking about a man who put his squabble over a horse before the ownership of Manchester United AND refuse to speak to the BBC (costing the club countless £1,000’s in fines) after matches in support of his son.

The greatest manager in history or not, Sir Alex is a ruthless, manipulative, horrible bastard who lets no one step on him, no one cross him and no one forget who’s in charge unless it suits him. In Rooney’s case it suited him to keep his powder dry. We’re heading towards the day that powder is ignited. Maybe it will happen this summer, maybe it won’t, but it will happen sooner or later and until such time as it can’t happen then I’ll never believe it won’t.

In the original post I posed the question “Who would want to buy Wayne Rooney?”. I doubt there’s many suitors banging down the door willing to pay him what he earns at United because in truth he’s not that special. However, the speculation has of course meant there’s now a betting market for Rooney’s next club with Paris St Germain leading the way with bwin at 4.00, City & Real Madrid at 7.00 and 10.00 bar.

Do you think he’ll stay at United for the rest of his career or do you think he’ll leave this summer?