Wayne Rooney Goes Home To Roost
With far less fanfare than That Villan John Terry, Wayne leaves Man U and returns to his old home club, Everton from whence he sprang into Britain’s….well, England’s at least….football imagination so many years ago.1 There wasn’t the major salutations that surrounded Terry’s departure from Chelsea. Which does seem a bit odd to me. But it seems to me like, well, suddenly he’s gone on a free transfer (undisclosed fee) without hardly a note alacrity.
Now you see him sporting an Everton shirt and an expensively cheap haircut as if all those years were just someone’s fervent imagination gone astray. From wunderkind to young old man just like that!
There’s No Place Like Home
It’s done. It’s done. He’s set sail down the Manchester Ship Canal to the blue side of Liverpool. He’ll be pitching up at Goodison Park now instead of Old Trafford. It almost has the feel of quiet desperation about it. A last minute signing from Greece or Turkey or Belgium to fill a roster spot nobody else wanted. Almost.
Another possible and quite likely truth is that Rooney is just a make-weight in the transfer business strolling up the Mersey the other way. And when I say strolling up the Mersey, I mean actually strolling on water, like Jesus supposedly did, and without knowing where the rocks are. We’ll get to that piece of business in a moment.
Anyway. I always had the impression and feeling that Rooney was as revered at Man U as John Terry was at Chelsea. But I’m not seeing that. I didn’t see it last season when Rooney played far more minutes and games than John Terry played. In his final game at Chelsea, John Terry was loved by all and had his final glorious Chelsea moment in the sun.
Rooney? All of a sudden he’s just gone. Maybe Captain Britain wasn’t as loved or liked as I thought.
Meanwhile, strolling up the Mersey and into the fray comes Joe Belgium with his £75 mill price tag in his wake. I refer, for those of you burning heaters and sucking questionable beverages containing energy drinks, flaccid soda pop,& bottom shelf booze while burning heaters on the back deck of THE FIREHOUSE in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin USA!USA!!USA!!, that would Romelu Lukaku from Belgium by way of Chelsea….who’s sold him to Everton for £28 mill in 2014 and now wanted to buy him back. But ManU(re) beat them to the punch and cut them to the quick. So, Lukaku is trading in his Chang Beer shirt for a sporty red number bearing the ubiquitous Chevrolet bow-tie.
Anyway, this is what Man U thinks they are getting:
Romelu Lukaku
And this is what they have actually spent their 75 million quid on:
Joe Belgium
We’ll see how all this goes, then. And let the tears fall where they may.
The Transfer Business Fairy comes to bless Chelsea. And others….
Chelsea might have been left crying by the side of the road on that Lukaku business.
Instead….they landed one of the other big fish they were hoping for.
German international Antonio Rüdiger was signed from AC Roma for a tidy sum of £29 mill ((Euro snobs, you do the maths)). The center back has 17 caps for Germany and featured in their winning Confederations Cup run.
Next up, Monaco’s Tiémoué Bakayoko signs on for Chelsea for any even tidier sum of £39 mill. After he drops his drawers and cough for the doctor, he’ll sit out a few ’til the start of the season to heal up his knackered xxx knee.
Some of Chelsea’s youth who’ve done are off on permanent deals instead of loans. Nathan Ake is off to Bournemouth for xxx. Nathanial Chalobah in off to Watford for xxx. Ruben Loftus-Cheek howver is being loaned to Crystal Palace for more 1st team experience.
Since we missed on Lukaku, we still need to do a piece of sharp business with someone for a new striker. Your guess is as good as mine, there.
So don’t bet your mother-in-law’s money of any of the following: Alexis Sanchez from ArseAnal; Alvaro Morata from Real Madrid; or perhaps most intriguingly of all…a run at Pierre-Emerick Aubemayung from my equally beloved Die Schwartzgelben who wants away from BVB Borussia Dortmund for reasons2 I cannot begin to fathom.
Our erstwhile defensive midfielder, Nemanja Matic, was wanted by ManU(re), but their hijacking of Joe Belgium put paid to that facile notion. Matic appears to be headed to Juventus instead. A good move. Juve is my favorite team in Italy’s Serie A.
Finally, let it be noted that the aforementioned Gylfi Sigurdsson might be on his way out the Land of Fear to the less scary (depending on your point of view) confines of Everton’s Goodison Park. Swansea is whining about tapping up and all, and are holdoing out for a £50 mill transfer. But my feeling is it’s moot point since I believe that Swansea is headed back down to the Championship next season no if Gylfi stays or leaves. Better for the Swans to cash out now and use the coin to rebuild.
And that’s about it for now. So, instead going on for 2,000 more words about Celtic’s current Champions League match with Linfield which was 0-2 Celtic at halftime last I checked….let’s gether ’round the bonfire and sing a song about Captain Britain.
