SPORT..Capello fires Rooney warning

Capello fires Rooney warning

England boss only interested in form of United striker

England manager Fabio Capello has warned striker Wayne Rooney that he will not play him unless he finds his form.

The Manchester United player is currently sidelined with an ankle injury but his form for club and country has been questionable for the past six months and he has netted just once in the Premier League this season.

The troubled forward has also been headline news in the tabloids as revelations regarding his personal life were also published last month.

Rooney, 25, then expressed a desire to leave Old Trafford before making a sensational U-turn and signing a new five-year contract last week.

However, Capello claims he is not concerned about Rooney's life off the field, as long as he delivers the goods on it.

But if Rooney does not perform, the Italian says he will not hesitate to leave out the former Everton youngster.

"If he's (in form) I'll play him, otherwise no," Capello told RAI.

"For anything else, you've got to ask (Manchester United manager Sir Alex) Ferguson."

 

Rooney aftertaste

Wayne Rooney wasn't even in the country this weekend but last week's ill-advised saga still leaves a bad taste in the mouth, according to skysports.com's Alex Dunn.

The Insider Posted 25th October 2010 view comments

After a week in which one national newspaper juxtaposed Wayne Rooney's grimace behind the wheel of his 4x4 with a grainy shot of one of Manchester's most deprived areas on its front page, it might have been advised a much needed break in Dubai was not the answer to getting the public back onside.

A trip to the gaudy epicentre of opulence, ostentation and overindulgence may have been just the ticket to recharge the batteries, but in times of public austerity it served more to remind his detractors of how last week's biggest battle took place in the boardroom rather than on the pitch.

Rooney: Recharging his batteries in Dubai

At the Britannia on Sunday the silence was golden as United's away support elected to keep counsel on the season's most sensational story so far.

Stoke's vociferous faithful were less inclined to ignore the elephant in the room as they reinterpreted the United man's words to the tune of "You're s***and Rooney said you are." Over at Eastlands, the banner makers were out in force again as one pronounced the blue side of the city a 'Shrek free zone'.

Javier Hernandez's inception of the 'back-heel header' and late opportunistic winner stole the plaudits as his manager spoke of the Mexican's 'wonderful demeanour about life' and 'beautiful manners'. After a tough week the United chief was so pleased he even let him off today's paper round. Sat on his lounger on a Dubai beach Rooney might just have been a little pea green with envy.

As Hernandez spoke to the Sky Sports cameras of his utmost gratitude at being given a chance at the 'greatest club in the world', in the background Sir Alex Ferguson was issuing a thinly disguised criticism of Paul Stretford, the agent one Sunday newspaper suggested Rooney routinely rings to discuss the implications of booking a taxi before invariably concluding it'd be better if Stretford did it himself.

The pair are known to be tighter than a pair of Russell Brand's strides, leaving Ferguson to conclude: "You have to deal with agents of this world today which is difficult. The players are no problem. There is no problem with players. Some agents are difficult."

It doesn't take Clouseau to surmise to whom he is referring.

Conspiracy?

The remarkable nature and timing of Rooney's U-turn has born more conspiracy theories than arise at a JFK convention after a few beers. One has intimated there is an agreement in place that he will still be sold, but just at a price more reflective of his talents now the club have protected themselves by the signing of a new five-year deal.

United have quickly come out to reject any such suggestions, with the spectre of Cristiano Ronaldo's move to Real Madrid after he signed a similarly long-term contract at Old Trafford a ghost the club are keen to exorcise.

Scouring the chat rooms and discussion forums for fans' reaction last week was to ram a further stake into the heart of anyone who amid the sheikhs, all-seater stadia, self-serving Yanks, gargantuan egos, silver-tongued agents, WAGs, brass and boardrooms still believes that football is a simple, beautiful game at heart.

There was less indignation towards a man who looked willing to walk across the city barefooted to dance in the pulpit of lucre, filthy or otherwise, than weary resignation.

But surely if Rooney, the Croxteth-born roundhead with the guile of a cavalier, turned turncoat the game is up. Here was one of the last street taught footballers you actually believed was solely in it for the love of the game. Each goal he scored looked as though it was his first, an ecstasy etched all over his face that even £200,000 a week can't buy.

If nothing else Rooney's flirtations have cemented a view that those of us who feel professional footballers might care a solitary iota more for one over priced replica shirt than another are so out of sync with the realties of modern day life we should have been lowered into the ground yesterday.

Pity us, the fools, who still believe what John Lennon preached in his first post-Beatles solo album. Working Class Hero, my arse.

Everton supporters could barely suppress a giggle when their United counterparts argued Rooney would never join one of their rivals, but while the phrase 'Once a blue, always a blue' elicits a collective retching inside Goodison there is a marked difference this time. Everton are a grand football club but only those of a blue persuasion would deny a player the right to test himself at Old Trafford. At the time of his proclamations he was a kid, a puppy of a footballer in the infancy of finding his voice and more pertinently his feet.

Overhaul

It seems to be an accepted truism in football today that United are desperately in need of an overhaul and as such Rooney was quite within his rights to question the direction the club is heading in but let us not forget this is the same squad, with a couple of youthful additions, that failed to win a fourth successive Premier League title by just a solitary point last season.

The argument goes that football is a business like any other and as such, why should it not conform to the same conventions? Why should its institutions, the clubs, not chase the capitalist dream above all others? And likewise, its stars, the players, are equally no more beholding to their employers than the chief executive who swaps Asda for Tesco.

But business in its traditional sense follows a capitalist model as any company's inception is invariably driven by a desire to make money. Football, when goalposts really were jumpers, was not born from the same desire.

To boil everything down to business is to not just fly in the face of football's origins as a sport but to gob in it. The music industry is a business, one that is as cutthroat and vicious as any, and yet when an artist takes a path marked profit they're lambasted as sell-outs.

To pursue success, in the sense of a chart place, is to chase an infantile dream. When John Lydon started selling butter middle aged punks made bonfires of their Sex Pistol LPs and as for Genesis fans when Phil Collins donned that gorilla costume...ugly scenes.

Talk has been that Rooney first became unsettled at the World Cup when discussions with his team-mates turned to money. United are no longer the best payers in English football, they're certainly not the best payers in Manchester, but regardless of worth in relation to others just how much does it take to keep a modern day star happy? I'm pretty confident he doesn't feel stupid in front of his England team-mates because he can't afford the newest trainers or had to quit the card school early as the stakes became too high.

Rooney may have looked on at envy at the wages of Mario Balotelli and Yaya Toure across the street (probably not anymore as he's reportedly now the Premier League's best paid player) but they probably do likewise when they consider his trophy cabinet.

George Best's European Cup winner's medal fetched £156,000 at auction last week. It was undervalued. Its true value is priceless and Rooney and co would do well to remember as much. 

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