José Mourinho says any confusion Wayne Rooney has about being a midfielder is not down to him after Manchester United’s captain indicated a desire to play there during the international break.
On Monday night Mourinho takes United to Liverpool with his side trailing Jürgen Klopp’s team by three points and three positions. Rooney has failed to start any of United’s last three matches and it remains unclear where he will feature when he returns to the starting XI.
Mourinho, at his unveiling in July, was insistent Rooney would operate in attack and was “never a 6 or 8”. He has since played as a forward under the Portuguese, yet before England’s World Cup qualifier against Malta the 30-year-old suggested his preference is for a deeper role.
Then, Rooney said: “I feel I can control and dictate games from there,” said Rooney. That suggested a clash with Mourinho’s view, especially when he was then deployed in a midfield role against Malta by the England interim manager, Gareth Southgate.
“If somebody confused him, it was not me,” Mourinho said, although it was unclear if he back-tracked on his previous comments when adding: “He can play everywhere – that’s no problem.”
Rooney was dropped by Southgate for the second qualifier – against Slovenia – having been left out of the starting line-up by Mourinho for United’s match against Stoke this month. Mourinho had previously suggested that Rooney had been deeply affected by some of the criticism of him after the last international break, saying there “was a Wayne before the Slovakia-England and a Wayne after the Slovakia-England”.
Asked if Rooney had again rejoined the United squad in a similar state of mind, Mourinho said: “I think what you could hurt you did already. I don’t think you can do more than what you did. So I think in this moment it is time for him to recover from what was done to him and the best place for him to do that is feeling like he feels at home here.
“I’m not saying that [he] is low – it’s: ‘OK, you can hurt me but you can’t put me down.’ I think he’s the same.”
Mourinho claimed Rooney remains a first-choice. “At Man United he didn’t lose [his] place. Not at all, for me, he’s first-choice,” he said. When it was put to him that Rooney has not started any of the last three games, the head coach said: “That’s my job. That’s a choice. I have 24 players.”
Despite Rooney scoring the winner at Liverpool last year Mourinho said this would not affect his thinking regarding selection.
“The records are not important for me,” he said. “A match is an isolated event. There is no relation to what you did in the past, no relation to what you do in the future. That is why I don’t like much the statistics of previous matches and previous results and this kind of thing.”
