Wayne Rooney, the manager - an interview by Alan Shearer (2024)

Before I talk to Wayne Rooney in his new profession as a manager, I find myself reminiscing about the days when he first introduced himself to English football, and there is only one way I can describe him. In the nicest possible sense, he was a freak.

He was football’s wonder boy. Except he looked and played like a man. Even as a 16-year-old, Wayne had the build of someone much older. He was a force of nature — powerful, direct, spiky, deceptively fast, bristling with competitive courage.

There were fires burning behind those pale eyes.Wayne didn’t bend for anybody. He always wanted the ball. And he always backed himself, no matter who he was up against.

Everybody remembers that volley against Newcastle United, right? You know the one: 30 yards out, in front of the Stretford End, a mandatory pick for any list of great Manchester United goals. No way should he probably even try a shot from that position. Oh sh*t, he just did. And it was on its way to the top corner as soon as it left his boot.

That was my penultimate season with Newcastle and I was just a few yards away when Wayne pulled back his right foot. He couldn’t have struck it any sweeter. But it was anger on his face, not euphoria, and I didn’t realise until this interview that I was part of the reason for it.

There is a glint in his eye as he tells me, all these years later, what was bothering him.

Wayne had got it into his head that Newcastle’s players had been getting away with all sorts of fouls. And he seems to be insinuating that the referee at Old Trafford that day had been particularly lenient with me.

He can laugh about it now, in fairness. “There was one bad tackle in particular — if it had been anyone else on the pitch, it would have been a yellow card! I was pissed off. You can see it in my face. Then I saw Kleberson warming up on the touchline, ready to come on for me. I was even more pissed off that I was going to be taken off for him.”

It just happened that Wayne took out his frustration on the ball. He still looks pretty mad even when the ball comes back out of the net and he lashes it in for a second time.

What a hit, and what a player.

And what a bloody marvellous job he is doing now, too.

The guy sitting in front of me is trying to restore some order to Derby County after far too long when, elsewhere in the club, they have been operating by the theory of chaos.

We are going to talk about a playing career that saw Wayne replace Sir Bobby Charlton as the record goalscorer for club and country. Not bad, eh? We will chat about Everton, about his time in MLS, his achievements for England, his regrets, his ambitions.

I will also remind him that he was on the pitch, in his breakthrough season with Everton, when I put in the volley at St James’ Park I always rated as my best-ever goal. We swapped shirts at the end of that match and it’s nice to hear he has it framed and up on the wall rather than stuck in a bin-bag somewhere.

First, though, I want to ask him how the hell he is coping — and not just coping, but actually excelling — after being thrown into the deepest of deep ends in his first job in management.

Don’t be misled by the fact Derby are bottom of the Championship, with only 11 points on the board after 25 games. Yes, it is true they need a football miracle if they are going to clamber out of the relegation places. And, yes, the likelihood is it will end with the club dropping into English football’s third tier for the first time since the mid 1980s.

All that, however, goes to the very top of the club and the worst excesses of Mel Morris’ ownership.

Derby would be 14th now if they had not been docked 21 points for their financial mismanagement, and that is some feat bearing in mind the club are now fighting just to exist. It is amazing to think the team at the bottom of the league have lost fewer games than one of the sides currently in the play-off spots and the same amount as fifth-placed Queens Park Rangers.

“We will know by February whether we have a chance of staying up,” Wayne tells me. “But for us to be talking about it now, at the turn of the year — even if it’s a small chance — the lads deserve a lot of credit.

“For the players, it’s a chance to create a legacy. It’s a chance to create history. Nobody has ever done it before, from minus 21 points, and stayed up. It’s an opportunity to become heroes with the fans. You could argue it would be the greatest achievement in the club’s history. There might not be a trophy at the end of the season for us to lift but, if we did stay up, it would be a massive achievement.”

You have to admire his drive, his mentality, his backbone. Wayne could easily have walked when those points were taken away, the administrators took control, the transfer embargoes hit, the redundancies kicked in and, most scarily of all, the headlines warned that a battered, beleaguered club might even face liquidation. He might have given it up as Mission Impossible, especially as I doubt he needs the money. Not Wayne, though. He has never been a quitter.

“It’s my first managerial job and I don’t think it would have looked great, at the first sign of difficulty, to walk away,” he says. “I spoke to the players and said, ‘Listen, I’m in this with you, side by side, we are going to have difficult moments and there’s a big possibility we are going to be relegated, but it’s also a chance for us to do everything we can to work hard and move this club forward’. I like the staff here. The fans have been great with me. If I can help the club, I’m going to give it a go.”

His family have bought into the project too, with son Kai in the away end for the 2-1 win at Stoke City last week.

Thanks to all the @dcfcofficial fans tonight, more great away support. Here’s my son Kai at his first away game. Let’s keep going 🐏💪🏼 #dcfc pic.twitter.com/P5ThCXoLwM

— Wayne Rooney (@WayneRooney) December 30, 2021

It has been tough, though. Just try to imagine all the problems that come with managing a club that is so close to being financially shipwrecked. It has been one thing after another. Wayne tells me that he has given debuts to nearly 20 lads from the academy. It’s incredible. At one point, early last year, the players didn’t even receive their wages. Not on time, anyway.

“I spoke to the owner and they guaranteed it would be paid in a couple of weeks. I made the players aware and, in fairness, they didn’t kick up a fuss. For myself, it’s not an issue. But it is for some of those players who haven’t earned as much money. I’ve got players now who are still on YTS money — and they are in the first team. It’s been tough for them but they have just got on with their jobs.”

Let’s walk through that one again: here’s Derby, twice champions of England in the 1970s, trying to pull off the Great Escape — maybe the Greatest Escape — and they are having to rely, in part, on kids earning youth-team salaries to do it. What a mess. And, as I say, what a job Wayne is doing.

It is sad to see a once-proud club in such a state. And Wayne’s right: it’s already a minor miracle that, midway through the season, we are still talking about the possibility of a Houdini-style feat of escapology.

Typical Wayne, he sounds like he genuinely believes they can do it.

Wayne has just taken training for the day when we talk. His initials are on his tracksuit top. There are silver flecks in his beard. But he is young for a manager, at 36, and it must have been strange when he returned to Old Trafford recently to see Cristiano Ronaldo, eight months older than him, still operating at the highest level.

Not that Wayne should have too many regrets when he looks back over a career that has brought him more trophies and individual awards than he can probably even remember.

There is only Peter Shilton in the entire history of the England team with more caps than Wayne’s 120. Sir Bobby’s 49-goal record lasted 45 years before Wayne caught and overhauled him. His achievements are astonishing. But one of Wayne’s more endearing traits is that he has never been absolutely fixated on personal glories in the way that, say, Ronaldo can be.

Just consider his reaction when I mention that Harry Kane is now closing on his record. “It won’t be mine for long, will it?” says Wayne. “Obviously, if he stays fit, you can imagine he will take it within the next year or so. And genuinely, the record is great to have but I’ve always been more of a player who just loves playing the game.

“At some point, someone is going to break the record. It would actually be nice if it’s one of my former team-mates. I hope he does it. The closer you get to it, the more it drags on. So, for his sake, if he is going to do it, hopefully sooner rather than later.”

Harry has 48 goals, five short of Wayne’s total, and might fancy his chances of nabbing the record before we get to the World Cup later this year. What none of us knows for sure is whether he will still be a Tottenham Hotspur player by that stage, or if he is still hoping for a move to Manchester City.

“I spoke to Harry after the (Euro 2020) final against Italy,” says Wayne. “I went back to the hotel and saw all the players. I sneaked in! Obviously I wouldn’t say what we talked about in private but for him, it’s a decision he needs to make in terms of whether he wants to leave and try to win trophies. You look at Man City as the only club that could guarantee it.

“Or does he want to leave a legacy at Tottenham? Could he do the same as yourself at Newcastle and Matt Le Tissier at Southampton? If he does that, I’m sure he’d have a job for life at Tottenham. You go somewhere else, there’s no guarantee it’s going to work. It’s a tough decision for him.”

As I have written before, Harry can achieve greatness whether he stays at Spurs or not. My preference was to chase trophies with Newcastle rather than Manchester United and, even though we didn’t win anything in my time there, I wouldn’t swap those 10 years for the world. It was far too precious.

Wayne, on the other hand, left Everton at the age of 18 to join a club that was already a trophy-grabbing machine. We are talking about a guy who won five Premier League titles, one European Cup, one FA Cup, the Europa League and three League Cups. Wayne was at Old Trafford for 13 years and it is interesting to get his views on the club’s struggles, the departure of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and the recent move to a new 4-2-2-2 system under interim manager Ralf Rangnick.

“I’ve been to a few games, taken my kids. Obviously it’s been difficult for them. I think it had got to the point with Ole where everyone could see it was coming to an end. With the new manager now, you don’t know. I’m sure it’s a lot different to anywhere he has managed before. There’s a lot more pressure, managing a lot of high-profile players.

“I was at his first game against Crystal Palace and I thought they looked very good. My only concern, with that shape, was that when you come up against better teams — Liverpool, Man City, Arsenal — you could get punished. The most important thing is that the players need to buy into it. He needs to get them working as a group rather than as individuals.”

Don’t underestimate Wayne’s football intelligence. He has worked for some of the best managers in the business and picked up bits from all of them. Sir Alex Ferguson, for one.

“Fergie’s man-management was by the far the best. Of course you need relationships with players, but you also need that authority. Tactically, (Louis) Van Gaal was very good, but he was too honest, if you like. He’d speak to an 18-year-old the same way you’d talk to a 35-year-old. It’s about getting that balance right and letting the young lads play without fear.”

Does Wayne ever warm his Derby players’ eyebrows with his own verbal ‘Hairdryer’? How would he describe his own managerial style?

“Very calm, actually,” he says, though I get the feeling he wouldn’t stand for any nonsense.

“I’m honest with the players. In our first meeting, I said to them, ‘You’ll have your days off to be with your families but, when you are at work, if you’re not prepared to work hard and do it like I want, you can leave now’. These are my demands, what I expect, whether that’s the best player, the oldest player, the youngest player, anyone.”

That sounds perfectly fair to me — but the modern manager also has to deal with issues that never used to be a problem in my playing days. Social media, just for starters.

Wayne knows from experience how that can drag you in. “I was in my mid-20s when social media was getting big. For a year or so, I was part of it. I couldn’t hold myself back! I put out a few things and then obviously had to take myself away and monitor it.

“For the young lads now, it’s got ups and downs. There’s an upside in terms of, commercially, you can earn a lot of money through it. But I’ve also seen players coming into dressing rooms (after matches) and checking Twitter to see how they played.

“If you are going on it, you’ve got to expect comments about your performances. It could be opposition fans, it could be your own fans. You need to be able to take it, otherwise you end up in a bad place.”

Wayne speaks with quiet authority. He has the kind of presence that means his players will automatically respect him. “We’ve got a lot of young players,” he says. “What you find with the young lads is they listen.”

It’s easy to see why his players are responding — and Fergie, I imagine, would appreciate Wayne’s story about what it was like to go from being one of the players at Derby when he first joined to being very much the boss 10 months later.

Wayne barely even blinks. “There were a couple of players right at the start who had been my team-mates when I was playing. They weren’t prepared to do it. I knew they’d be an issue in the dressing room. Within three weeks, they were both gone.”

Are there any what-ifs? Well, of course there are. Every ex-footballer looks back on his career and wishes a few things had turned out differently. And Wayne, like myself, will always have that gnawing sense of what might have been when it comes to England and various tournament ordeals.

“The Euros in 2004,” he says. “I felt we could really go on to win that until I broke my foot (in the quarter-finals). Then 2006, the World Cup, when I got the red card (also in the last eight, on both occasions England lost to Portugal in a penalty shootout). That was a tough one. I remember sitting in the dressing room as the lads were going into extra time and then penalties. All I could think was, ‘If they go through, I miss the semi-final and the final, and if we go out it’s my fault’. It was a horrible place to be, all that going through my head. Those are the two where I have the most regrets.”

Overall, though, what a career Wayne had after announcing his arrival, as a 16-year-old with David Moyes’ Everton, by curling in that famous late winner against Arsenal in 2002.

Everton were Wayne’s first love. That will never change and it has been disappointing for him to see his former club, under Rafa Benitez’s management, dropping into the bottom six in the past week.

“With Rafa coming in during the summer, there was obviously a split among the fans because of his connections to Liverpool. They started the season really well but they’ve hit a poor run of form.

“What’s probably done them a favour is the last three games getting postponed (we spoke before Sunday’s loss to Brighton). It takes a bit of pressure off and it allows the lads who have been injured the chance to come back and get fit. The real challenge now is how those lads do when they come back because, for everyone looking from the outside, that group of players needs to be doing better.”

Without getting too far ahead, I wonder how long it might be before we see Wayne managing in the Premier League. He certainly doesn’t shy away from it when I ask whether he would fancy the job at Old Trafford in the future. Wayne might be young for his profession but he tells me he has been planning for management since he his late-20s.

It was one of the reasons why he moved to the US towards the end of his playing career for 18 months with Washington-based DC United. “I felt the opportunity to go to the States — the culture, the games, dealing with different situations—– would help me gain experience.

“It’s very similar to the Championship’s level. There are a lot of South Americans who are technically very good. The American lads are good athletes — maybe still trying to figure out the game tactically, and maybe not as good as over here. But the games were at a good level. I see a lot of players (in MLS) who are more than capable of coming over here.”

For now, Wayne has enough on his hands with Derby before he starts thinking too much about taking the leap to the Premier League.

“I’ve spoken to Van Gaal, to Moyesy, to Alex Ferguson. Not so much for advice, more for a bit of feedback. It’s hard for them to give advice because when you’re where this club is, in administration, it’s very different from a normal manager’s job. We’ve got staff losing jobs. We’re in a transfer window where, if things aren’t sorted, other teams can pick off our players.

“There was a potential owner, the American guy Chris Kirchner, who has pulled out now. He’d been to a few games. He’d made me aware of his plans, which suited my plans, but for his own reasons he pulled out. As far as I’m aware, there are another two who have put in decent bids to take over the club. I’m not aware who they are, but I’m hoping there is some movement very soon because, at the minute, it’s impossible for me to plan.”

And yet, Wayne isn’t telling me how unfair it all is. He doesn’t come across as feeling sorry for himself. He isn’t whinging. He is just getting on with it.

He is showing, in the process, that he is a genuine leader.

And maybe Derby, minus those 21 points, can make the impossible happen. The gap to safety is down to 11 points after two goals in the last five minutes at Reading yesterday saw them snatch a draw from 2-0 down, even with Wayne missing the game as he gets over a cold.

If he pulls it off, they might just have to give him the keys to the city.