Fans Comment
Hans Fyhrqvist

Creating "the Plot"
05/02/18

Wayne Rooney: Still loves the Goodison turf...

I think the most die-hard Evertonians live in Merseyside, but even I, living in Finland, felt that I had to do something when the speculation was hotting up last summer.  So I wrote three letters, one to Bill Kenwright, one to David Moyes and one to Wayne Rooney.  Not that I thought my opinion would hinder the inevitable, but to show what Evertonians everywhere thought about the matter.

What made the move so unacceptable to us Evertonians was we thought that Wayne should have stayed at least one or two more seasons to see how things would develop at Goodison Park.  If the Club would progress, as it has to this day, and Everton could compete for the European places, then he would not have any reason to go.  This is at least what I thought, that Wayne should give Everton some time; after all he was an Evertonian born and bred.

But we must try and see the situation from Waynes´s point of view, too.  Last season was awful, there was some alleged player unrest in the dressing room which could have affected Rooney and surely our final position in the League made Rooney think that Everton was not going to compete with the best for many years to come.  And when he was England´s star player in Portugal, his feelings to leave to a more glamorous club where he could play European football all the time, became the telling factor.  And so he departed to Manchester United.

As I said, Evertonians felt Rooney had let us down, but we, and especially you living in Liverpool/Merseyside, must also take pride that at Everton, and as a Scouser, he developed those characteristics he possesses: great confidence in his own ability and limitless ambition to succeed and go forward in the realm of football.

We must also take all the positives of the sale of Rooney, however difficult it might be.  Firstly we must consider this season as rationally as we can.  If Rooney had stayed, would we have played so well?  I would like to think so, or even that we would have been still better, because Rooney has that class we so much crave.  But it could also very easily have been the opposite way: the other players passing the ball to Rooney and then watching what our Wonderboy would do with it!  You surely understand my point.  As we now have no Rooney, the other players have had to take more responsibility with the ball and we have perhaps played more as a well-knit team.  As we all know, the work-ethic and the team spirit have been the foundation stones of our success story thus far this season.  This has been achieved mostly with the desire to show everybody that Everton was not a "one-man team" and that Everton could survive without Rooney.

Secondly we must also take into consideration the money we got, or are getting, from Rooney´s sale, be that £10 or £27 million or something in-between .  The cash received from Rooney will be even more relevant, because this "Samuelson saga" is becoming to look like a "never-ending-story".  With another £10 million coming next summer, we can strengthen our squad with players Moyes can get, and hopefully we can keep our momentum going next season.  Success breeds success, and along the road, money, too!

I´m now proceeding to the "game-plan", or a "plot" if you like, which I have developed in my mind ever since Rooney left.  I think this has also been hinted earlier here in ToffeeWeb by at least one of the usual contributors.  Let´s us think that Everton have began to progress step by step and that, say after five years time, we would have a team capable to compete for UEFA Cup places every season. In that time Rooney would have won the League once or twice (or not at all) with United, and he would then like to play at the Continent, say at Real Madrid.  He would stay there for two or three years and then return to England and... yes, of course, EVERTON.

Why not, if we are really one of the better teams then?  After all, Goodison Park still is, and always will be, his "spiritual home".  Think about this possibility, he would still be only 26-28 years old, have all his learning and experience, so he could have quite a few of his best years reserved for his beloved Blues!

Yes, this can be "day-dreaming", but it could also be reality one day.  Stranger things happen in life, you know!  So now I arrive to the critical point of my article: you who attend Goodison Park next Saturday, try not to be too unfair to "The Boy" (this same applies to our League meeting in April).  It would be most pleasing to hear afterwards that he was not booed or abused every time he received the ball.  I know it will be difficult, with all the frustrations which his "transfer saga" created easily boiling over on Saturday.  My plea is that we Evertonians should not burn our bridges completely with Wayne Rooney because, if we do, it would be much harder to get him back, if that situation would become realistic some day in the future.

Remember: Wayne Rooney has all the natural talent but it was Everton Football Club which nurtured those unprecedented qualities so that they could blossom, and maybe some day we can still enjoy the skills of Rooney in the Royal Blue shirt.

Hans  Fyhrqvist

... and it was Everton Football Club that forced through his sale because they were perilously close to administration.  But that is not the story put about by the powers that be, so your version has of course the broader acceptance among most Evertonians. — ToffeeWeb Editor

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