The Times
 

Rooney transfer request confirms Everton's fears
By Oliver Kay,  28 August 2004

THE two freckle-faced youngsters waiting outside Everton’s training ground, each of them wearing a shirt bearing Wayne Rooney’s name, had no idea. They had heard all about the prospect of their hero, only seven or eight years older than themselves, leaving his hometown club, but they had seen no cause to believe it. Why should they, after all? “Once a Blue, always a Blue” — wasn’t that the legend on the T-shirt that he wore in the days when “Roo-mania” was confined to a small corner of Merseyside? The sad, harsh, entirely regrettable truth is that Rooney, who had an Everton pennant hanging in his bedroom window at his parents’ home when he made his Premiership debut barely two years ago, is no longer a Blue. At the age of 18, he — or rather those who purport to represent his interests — has decided he has had enough of being a hometown hero. He handed in a transfer request yesterday, confirming every Evertonian’s worst fears in a clumsy and wholly self-indulgent 132-word statement.

Rooney hopes “the Everton fans can come to understand my decision”, but they never will. Nor, even more absurdly, will they “respect” it. Professionally, he has cited his “need to be with a club that is playing in Europe every year”. Privately, in his talks with the club’s management, he has hinted at personal reasons, such as his desire to escape the Merseyside goldfish bowl, which, it transpires, he has chosen to blame for the lurid revelations about his sexual activities in a tabloid newspaper last Sunday.

For all the attractions of playing for Manchester United or Newcastle United, for all the merits in suggesting that he may benefit in the long run from playing in more illustrious company, this is a sorry tale. Everton might ultimately come to see his sale as good business, but, for now, at Goodison Park, there is only sorrow and regret that a boy, two years out of school, should decide, after a sum total of 67 Premiership appearances and 15 goals, that he has given the club as much as he can.

As he confirmed the news yesterday, David Moyes, the Everton manager, looked weary. “Yes, it’s true that they (Rooney and his advisers) have indicated that they’d like to leave,” he said. “They’ve handed in a transfer request and we will consider it. I’m very disappointed, obviously. Wayne is a terrific player and it has been smashing working with him. I sincerely hope he hasn’t kicked his last ball for Everton. But, looking at it, it seems that his mind is made up.

“Do I feel let down? I feel disappointed that he wouldn’t stay any longer. I still believe it’s right for him and his career to stay here and I think most people, if you asked them, would say the same. This is the club that has given him the chance to become the best player in the England team. We couldn’t have done more to try to keep him.

We’ve made the biggest contract offer we’ve ever made to any player (£50,000 a week). But I just feel, at the end of the day, that he and his advisers have made their decision.”

Moyes confirmed that Rooney had also “personally given reasons, but they’re private between us” and that “it has been a difficult period for Wayne”. Almost all of those difficulties, though, have been of his making. As an immature young man who struggles to keep himself out of trouble, he has no reason to think that life will be any different in Manchester or, in particular, in Newcastle, a city that is possibly even more of a goldfish bowl than Liverpool.

Until a week ago, Moyes was confident that Rooney would sign the contract that was offered to him last month. Others at Goodison Park did not share that optimism, but it is only since Monday, when, under duress, he admitted to Moyes that he wanted a move, that Everton have been resigned to his departure. Rooney has suggested that the fall-out from last Sunday’s tabloid allegations influenced his decision. “A smokescreen,” a source at Everton said. “He’s been trying to get out for weeks.”

Moyes insisted there was still a chance that Rooney could stay, adding that he would not be sold for less than his valuation, but, in reality, he has no choice but to prepare for a sale. James Beattie, the Southampton forward, has already been targeted as a replacement, with Moyes prepared to meet the £7 million asking price. If that deal comes off, Everton might even be stronger for it. But try telling that to those freckle-faced youngsters whose faith in football and in footballers might never recover.

[The above is unedited and provided within ToffeeWeb for archival purposes.]