Ferguson, has a stand named after him. He, Best and Denis Law make up the United Trinity statue. The
figure of Sir Matt Busby looks down on the three of them, on a street which has been given his name.
Nearly every figure to leave an indelible mark on the club is celebrated somehow. So where, you might ask,
is United’s all-time leading goalscorer?
Wayne Rooney will always be warmly received by United fans, who he meets again as a Derby County
player in the FA Cup fifth round at Pride Park tonight. The last time he encountered United’s travelling
support was at Everton on New Year’s Day in 2018. He acknowledged their chants of ‘Rooney, Rooney’
with a wave and a nod that night, only for the fans to then break out into a rendition of ‘You Scouse
Bastard’. The same had happened a few months earlier, after Rooney had received an ovation on his first
return to Old Trafford as an opposition player.
On both occasions it was playful ribbing rather than anything pernicious, but both were also evidence that
Rooney is not treated with the ardent, earnest reverence that a player with his record might expect. He is a
legend by any empirical measure - goals scored, appearances made or trophies won - but lacks that more
intangible sense of affection usually afforded to club greats. If another bit of banner space is freed up any
time soon, you imagine Paul Scholes, Bryan Robson or perhaps even Bruno Fernandes would all be ahead of
Rooney in the queue for recognition.
There is a simple reason why. Two, in fact. Rooney’s flirtations with leaving United in 2010 and 2013 - and
the super-size contracts that he subsequently engineered for himself - have not been forgotten, particularly
not that first dalliane. His threat to leave for the riches of Manchester City due to a perceived lack of
ambition permanently sullied his chances of gaining hero status. Mere days after publicly questioning
United’s “continued ability of the club to attract the top players in the world”, hours after 40 supporters
turned up at his Cheshire home in balaclavas, he was “convinced”, ready to “give everything” and
£100,000-a-week richer.
He stood accused of effectively holding the club to ransom, and the financial rewards on offer to him at City
should not be underplayed when retelling the story, but Rooney was concerned about the club’s level of
ambition and articulated criticisms of the Glazer ownership that many supporters shared. He, like them,
had grown used to settling for nothing but first place. Watching Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez leave
to be replaced by Gabriel Obertan and a 30-year-old Michael Owen would lead any elite-level player in their
prime to question their surroundings.
Ronaldo, of course, had spent much of the previous two years agitating to join Real Madrid. Yet in the early
stages of Rooney’s 2013 fall-out with Ferguson, he watched from the substitutes’ bench as his former team-
mate was rapturously received by a doting Old Trafford, even as Ronaldo scored the goal which saw Madrid
progress to the Champions League quarter-finals at United’s expense. Both he and Ronaldo had attempted
to force their way out of Old Trafford but in different ways. One left yet retained his good standing with the
fans. The other stayed and damaged his reputation irrevocably.
Rooney would rarely feel the same warmth as Ronaldo did that night, even while scoring goals for United
over the years that followed. His second dispute was not as explosive as the first and more protracted, but
still damaged to a relationship with fans which could be described as tempered admiration at best right up
until his departure. He left with relatively little fuss or fanfare considering the scale and breadth of his
achievements, having played a single minute in his last United appearance, the 2017 Europa League final.
Perhaps there are still chapters of Rooney’s United story to write. Solskjaer agreed on Wednesday with the
suggestion that, despite being only two months into a nascent coaching career, Rooney could return to Old
Trafford as manager one day. Of course, as his old team-mate, he could not really say anything else. But
Solskjaer’s predecessor once predicted similar. “He’s at home and I believe that one day he will be back
home,” said a hammy Jose Mourinho, on the day of that first Rooney return to Old Trafford.