Rooney's U-turn

So, Wayne Rooney has signed a new five-year deal with Manchester United, four days after saying he wouldn't sign any new contract and three days after saying he wanted to leave the club, all but reducing United's manager Sir Alex Ferguson to tears at the press conference ahead of the club's midweek European tie against Bursaspor. Interestingly, Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini, one of the few men who could afford to buy and pay Rooney to play for his club, said as early as Thursday that the player would probably stay at Old Trafford, as this kind of behaviour occurs often in Mancini's native Italy, apparently a ploy used by talismanic players to a squeeze a bump in pay from their employers. If that's the case, one could say that Rooney's intelligence has been underestimated. However, the way he went about this, assuming this was an elaborate ploy of his own concoction, was completely misguided and has left a bitter taste in the mouths of United supporters, with Max Clifford acknowledging the entire affair as "a public relations disaster".

Could it be that under a guise of "upwardly mobile chav" old Wayne is secretly a man of great intellect? To be fair, not all footballers are the stereotypical dullards we're told they are. When Burnley's captain, Clarke Carlisle, appeared on three editions of "Countdown" last February, he became the first Premier League footballer to appear on the show, with RTÉ and BBC websites both dedicating coverage to the player's appearances on a programme that neither broadcaster show. Yahoo Sport offered a list of footballers who also buck the stereotype; much as I dislike Frank Lampard (possibly only because he plays for Chelsea), I can't help but be impressed, and not a little envious, that he has 12 GCSE's, an A* in Latin, and an IQ of 150.

That said, Wayne is probably not the sharpest tool in the shed: he was embroiled in a tabloid scandal in 2004 after sleeping with a number of prostitutes, including a 48-year old grandmother known as "Auld Slapper" (which I'll assume is an affectionate nickname). Having rebuilt his relationship with his future wife Coleen and after handling the taunting of crowds across England, Rooney was then found last month to have been playing with prostitutes again, clearly forgetting that this sort of behaviour does not help with your marriage, or indeed help secure contracts with companies willing to pay you a small fortune to wear their suit/ watch/ after shave.

Speaking of trust, there's the small matter of dealing with the Manchester United fans who felt aggrieved following the news that Rooney wanted to leave the club, including the ones who congregated outside his house on Wednesday evening, presumably looking to have a small chat with the want-away striker and "persuade" him that United is the best club he could play for. Naturally, after running the club and its supporters through the mill during the week, Rooney has to convince people that he still loves United, and is eager to help the club to future success, beginning the new charm offensive via the club's website, shortly after signing the new contract. Ferguson is eager to draw a line under the turbulence of the past few days, preferring to focus on this weekend's game against Stoke, but United's supporters will not be as quick to move on. Most fans let the news of his cheating on his wife slide, but the view that he held his club, and the manager who had helped develop him into one of the finest players of his generation, will mean a harder sell of Rooney's loyalty to the Old Trafford faithful.