Wayne Rooney: in white or blaugrana?

If you´re looking for the overheated regurgitations of English tabloids, retweeted and reblogged for that measure, then I´d say keep trolling down the line because you´ll be treading in unfamiliar waters here. I´m not interested in the hype machine that panders sub-prime English product as grade A World-class content. We cover the game from a global perspective.

So, our inaugural story lands us in Manchester where civil war has erupted between King Fergie and his star attraction Lil´ Wayne Rooney. Wayne has lived a charmed life, catapulted to stardom in the Everton youth-team he became a superstar, England´s great-white hope and Manchester United´s bedrock over the last half-decade. Slowly but surely though, the bloom has come off his Liverpudlian rose.

Like Gazza or Becks, Gerrard or Lamps, JT or Rio, or a thousand other up-and-comers, the tabloid conveyor belt has pulled its victim in and spit them out the other side. Now, I´m not saying he´s a victim in all this. Far from it. He´s a grown man who has made serious mistakes, mistakes that are obviously affecting his play on the pitch. He cheated on his wife, he had an obscenity laced meltdown after the World Cup, but the most obvious mistake has been falling out with the one person who could knock him off his perch as England´s saviour: Sir Alex Ferguson. SAF´s weathered the fallout from pushing out Beckham or Van Nistelrooj so he was not going to be backed into a corner by a novice. It´s a game of chicken that Rooney won´t win, especially if this is about money, a plan to renegotiate his outdated contract more in line with his idea of being the man at the club now that Cristiano is gone.

Rooney had that for awhile. Last year he stepped into the shoes very capably. Berbatov was a confirmed bust. Carlos Tevez tried to upset the monetary apple-cart so it was obvious that Rooney would be given free reign, but something changed over the Summer. It can´t be that it was just the public relations nightmare that his private life had become. This isn´t the first time that a Manchester United player has overstepped his bounds and created chaos around the carefully manicured publicity detail that ManU! crafts. This isn´t business and never is for Ferguson. They´re his boys, until they aren´t anymore, and Lil Wayne isn´t.

Fergie says he´s injured, a mysterious ankle flareup, and Wayne says, ¨No. I´d like to leave sir. January if possible.¨ Reports are that Jose wants him for Madrid and even Barcelona are mentioned, but here´s the crux of the matter. No one in Spain has any money, other than the big two of course. Real Madrid  have publically stated that they will not be buying in January and Barcelona are trying to establish David Villa up front and who is twice the player that Rooney is. It is doubtful also that either club would spend Ronaldo type money to pry him out of Manchester and let´s not forget the extra 10% or so that English players command in the market. Economically, it makes no sense.

From a pure footballing perspective, does he take the place of Higuain for Real Madrid up front? The Argentine is on form and a deadlier pure finisher. Replace Di Maria or Ozil? That isn´t even a question really as neither have been evaluated sufficiently. Benzema is as troubled as Wayne and lacks an equal amount of form, but why would Madrid sell one problem for another. They don´t even duplicate each other´s skills. Benzema is a number 9 striker and Rooney is better served playing behind one. If Madrid buys anyone in January or anytime for that matter it´ll be a guy like Fernando Llorente from Athletic Bilbao who plays hard and scores goals for club and country. Listening Wayne?

As for Barcelona? Pep has his eyes on Cesc Fabregas and he´s saving up Sandro Rosell´s pennies for the option of buy Xavi Hernandez´s once and future back-up. Plus, there are players that can play in the Barcelona system and those that can´t (technically and tactically) and Lil Wayne is just not one of them, so ignore reports that have Rooney in claret and blue.

The rest of Europe is pretty dour with this global economic crisis. Bayern are tapped out with the Ribery signing. Inter Milan would probably take a bite, but they have plenty of options as well. Does anyone else in Italy have any money? Juve are building from their own template, one which is decidedly non-Rooney-esque I would imagine. Frankly, there just isn´t anyone in the world that they would spend 50-75 million euros that it would take to bring Rooney in. That´s a typically overinflated rate for a player that has obviously peaked.

So obviously from a footballing perspective it makes sense that the only ones who would buy a player of Rooney´s domestic stature is an English team. Given Ferguson´s reluctance to furnish rivals with ammunition to strike back at him I would say it´ll be interesting to note the coming transfer windows. You can bet that only a select few would be interested.As for Ferguson? With the resurgence of Berbatov and the Chicharito taking over as favoured son number one, I don´t think Sir Alex will be too bothered in losing a player who has obviously lost his way both on and off the pitch and especially on that training ground.