Wayne Rooney

With many outlets pondering what Rooney is thinking and with Ferguson’s press conference ensuring it’s the player who’s painted as the pantomime villain, perhaps we’re not giving Rooney the credit he deserves. Maybe this has been coming for a while and with the financial insecurity at the club, the lack of marquee players even being linked to United anymore and the sides’ continued and misguided over-reliance on Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes, it was only a matter of time before one of their key players decided United weren’t at the cutting edge anymore.

Are Jonny Evans, Chris Smalling and Kiko Macheda really good enough to form the hub of Ferguson’s next great side? Have Nani and Anderson both been anything other than expensive flops? Are Michael Carrick and Ji-Sung Park simply making up the numbers?

In the cold light of day, a training pitch doesn’t lie and maybe Rooney has looked around, seen the future and got scared. Maybe he’s right to want only the best. Manchester United’s tradition as one of the greatest teams in the world exists only because of their success and without it, as Liverpool have found out (and Manchester United experienced too in the decades following Busby), freefall is only a few short years away.

This could be a watershed moment in the history of Manchester United. Of course they will remain a force with or without Wayne Rooney but maybe it will take a 24 year-old from Merseyside moving somewhere else to finally open United’s eyes to the bigger problems threatening the long-term future of the club.

Excerpt from SoccerReportExtra.com