‘HERE COMES THE WAYNE AGAIN, FALLING ON MY HEAD LIKE A MEMORY’
It is sad indeed when a once-prominent individual reaches the stage where his abilities dwindle, his allure fades and his best efforts are greeted with a shrug or baroque swearing. Oh yes, The Fiver would certainly hate to get anywhere near that point. So if you ever detect signs of decline in the world’s foremost tea-timely football-related email, be sure to drop a line to readerslettersbin@theguardian.com. Until then, spare a thought for Wayne Rooney, whose search for a team to provide him with a guaranteed starting place has been complicated by the failure of everyone in the world to offer a route back into management to Mr Roy.
In the sort of quirky fact that you might expect to learn on a TV panel show hosted by Sandi Toksvig, the Fiver today found out that Rooney is still on the books of Manchester United. Granted, that’s probably just one of those oversights, like the way the prohibition of counting badgers while seated at a spinning jenny is still on the statutes of several English counties such as … look, the point is Rooney is still at Old Trafford, where heritage is valued very highly. At about £300,000 per week, in fact. Helping to nail Rooney down to that contract until 2019 was perhaps David Moyes’s most remarkable achievement at United.
Rooney still has his pride and his love of the game and you can’t put a price on those. The quaint artefact role is not one he wishes to play much longer, so he has reportedly instructed his Mr 15% to explore other opportunities. Paul Stretford has jetted off to China to discuss compelling projects, pride, the love of the game and all that stuff. One club, Tianjin Quanjian, admitted holding talks about Rooney but all that seems to have led to so far is a cheek-stinging slap-down from the club’s manager. “We did make an approach for Rooney,” confessed Fabio Cannavaro. “It was just a chat because he simply doesn’t suit our style of play. No further discussion was necessary.”
Of course, there are other possible destinations for Rooney beyond the home of cuju. The MLS might be an option, though Bradley Wright-Phillips is a hard act to follow, and a romantic return to the club where it all started, Everton, might even be on the cards. And if the ambitious new owner at Goodison Park shuns the emotional appeal of that move, then there may still be one potential refuge in England for a player deemed too worn and torn for Everton. So long as Moyes is at Sunderland, at any rate.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It was a bit of a farce. I’ve asked for a refund but we’ll see what happens there. The whole thing was poorly done but I was livid by the interval. There was complete contempt for the audience” – Olly Dean, an audience member at An Evening with Eric Cantona in Bournemouth, gives a glowing appraisal of what was offered up for punters who stumped up around £60 each for a ticket.
FIVER LETTERS
“Worst changing rooms (yesterday’s letters), asks Simon Toms? In 1997 Barnsley got promoted to the Premier League for the first time in their history. The visitors’ changing room back then was in a main stand built in 1903. It had a single pedestal toilet with no seat and no door and a row of broken pegs over slatted wooden benches. ‘You’ll be having to upgrade the changing room then, with the likes of Arsenal and Man Utd coming in,’ I said to one of the club’s directors. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘We’re going to break off a few more pegs and put up a sign: Welcome to effing Barnsley’” – John Daykin.
“I thought perhaps we had misheard John Lennon in A Day In The Life. I always thought he may have been saying TenThousand Goals In Blackburn, Lancashire. But your article from yesterday confirms that the original sleeve notes are correct” – Patrick McGrath.
“You could get odds of 10-1 for Jamie Vardy to score the last goal in Leicester’s game against Sevilla last night. He must have known the bookies were offering odds on him scoring, yet he went right ahead and did it anyway. I demand that he be sacked immediately” – Matt Fox.
• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … John Daykin.
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BITS AND BOBS
In a surefire sign that the world is well and truly jiggered, BT Sport is to screen FIFA 17 games live on the telly.
If Arsène Wenger does one at the end of the season, Hector Bellerín wouldn’t say no if Barcelona came knocking.
Claudio Ranieri was happy for the first time in yonks after Leicester escaped from Seville with a chance of making the Big Cup last eight despite touching the ball about three times all game. “We have a very big heart, very big effort … I think we deserved this goal,” he cheered.
Manchester United lightning rod Luke Shaw is considering doing one at the end of the season.
Yannick Bolasie may not play for Everton again until the end of the year after undergoing a second operation on his cruciate knee-knack.
And Harry Kane reckons the English national stadium is not a 90-000-capacity soulless bowl and is in fact a regular Bombonera. “[The atmosphere] at Wembley is even better [than White Hart Lane] to be honest with you,” he honked.
STILL WANT MORE?
China or no China, as far as Wayne Rooney’s legacy is concerned, he is done, writes floating football brain in a jar Jonathan Wilson.
If you like the “thunk” sound of a ball slamming into a crossbar, then this Joy of Six: goals going in off the woodwork will be upright your street.
When Yaya Touré sits on the sofa, he likes to watch matches like Man City’s bonkers 5-3 win against Monaco, he tells Andy Hunter. Unfortunately for him, he’s not getting many chances to sit on the sofa these days.
An MMA fighter’s Alan Pardew tribute going horribly wrong and a Vietnamese team’s in-game strike feature in this week’s Classic YouTube.
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