Wayne Rooney Would Be A Great Player In Any Era

 

Sir Alex Ferguson believes Wayne Rooney could have excelled in any era and has compared the Manchester United captain to club legend Sir Bobby Charlton.  Rooney's testimonial takes place on Wednesday night against his former club Everton, with United rewarding a player who has made 520 appearances since joining as an 18years old in 2004.

Ferguson, who managed Rooney for nine of his 12 seasons before retiring after United's last title-winning season in 2012/13, offered a glowing tribute to the striker who sits just four goals behind Charlton's all-time scoring record of 249 strikes for United.

Ferguson said: “He was an exciting signing [in 2004]. It was fairly shortly after I'd got rid of the idea of retiring and changed my mind, and I had to rethink about how we were going to take the club forward. When you make the decision to retire, you stop thinking, but once I decided to stay I started thinking again and it was really centred around bringing energy back into the team by looking at young players. Of course there was Cristiano Ronaldo, then there was Rooney, and it was a fantastic period. The two of them were unbelievable. Wayne came in as a first-team player right away, even though he was only 18, and he's gone on to play for Manchester United for 12 years, which is very difficult in the present day. I always think that great players can play in any era. Bobby Charlton would have been a great player today and Wayne Rooney would have been a great player back then.”