Pop Nonsense

There's more rubbish floating around Rooney today, it's really something that one man can cause so many column inches of speculation regarding his future when he's sat at home with his leg up for, the papers were telling us yesterday, up to 2 months.

The Sun have a nonsense article telling us that no one would really want to buy Rooney, except Man City, possibly.  They don't really know - I could have made up the story, except if I had I would have probably made this bit make sense:

Rooney was axed for United’s first home game of the season against Fulham on Saturday.

Boss Alex Ferguson’s patience with him had finally snapped after a turbulent two years.

Rooney’s performance at Everton convinced his manager his form and fitness were gone.

The relationship between the pair is now tense and they have barely spoken since the forward returned for pre-season.

It literally makes no sense.  The first sentence (of course in the world of the Sun the terms "sentence" and "paragraph" are interchangeable) has him axed for the 2nd game of the season, because, the second paragraph tells us, Sir Alex's patience had finally ran out, except, the third paragraph tells us, it ran out during the game Everton, except, according to the 4th sentence, they haven't been speaking since he returned for pre-season.  Can we get a consistent chronology over here please.

James Lawton gets in on the act here.  He makes great play on the programme notes where Sir Alex said: 

"If I hear a player has fallen out of love with us, and is looking elsewhere, I invariably help them out of the door," wrote Ferguson.

I don't pretend to know what's happening with Rooney, or behind the scenes, or Sir Alex's thoughts, I'm just here to read things and point out the rubbish, but, why does everyone connect that sentence with Rooney?  Maybe it was about the dropped Rooney.  Dropped to the subs bench.  Why can't that sentence have been about Nani?  That's Nani who was dropped and didn't even make the bench.  Nani whose possibly (depending where you read) stalling on a new contract, whose looking for a move maybe.  Why so many column inches devoted to that sentence and Rooney and no one writing, "but of course, it could have referred, more plausibly, to Nani"?  As Sir Alex has pointed out before: the journalists, they do like writing shit about Rooney.

The best bit of the Lawton piece is this paragraph though:

If that wasn't a statement of extreme concern about the player's commitment to the cause, one that Rooney no doubt assuaged for a while by a volcanic, shirt-kissing return to the team in a Cup tie at Manchester City and a vital run of consistent goalscoring, you had to wonder how much more explicit the master of Old Trafford could have been.

An image of Rooney and his "vital run of consistent goalscoring," being just a little blip, a ploy to make it seem like he was committed to us, by playing really well, scoring loads of goals and running around like a loon all season, just so we were fooled into thinking he was a good, committed footballer.  I've said it before, and no doubt I'll say it again - James Lawton is a buffoon.

As if to confirm the thesis that Sir Alex was referring to Nani, here's the story about him going to Zenit recurring again. Take everything in  the papers with a pinch of salt, but wanting away?

The Portugal player’s representatives reportedly met Zenit counterparts in Amsterdam on Monday to outline a deal.

Everything's connected to Rooney, The Independent reckon that Berba will go to Fiorentina depending on how bad Rooney's injury is.

The Telegraph have quotes from Javier Hernandez:

“I think in life you never stop learning, no matter what age you are.” Hernández said. “I try to learn from all my team-mates, but obviously it’s great to watch the other strikers in particular.

“They have all helped me a lot and I know I will learn a lot off Robin because he is a world-class striker who has a lot to give to the team and a lot to teach us all.”