Can A Rooney Move Save His England Career

There is a hotbed of activity connected to Everton at present, the club which finished 7th last season under the stewardship of Ronald Koeman have been one of if not the busiest club in the transfer window thus far with five new faces coming into the club for an outlay of approximately £85m.

That however has been somewhat overshadowed though over the last few days as they now look set to lose their talisman Romelu Lukaku as firstly Manchester United and now Chelsea have tabled bids of £75m, where the Belgian forward calls home next remains to be seen but one player who could very well be moving in the other way is that of Wayne Rooney.

The record goalscorer for England and Manchester United has been touted with a move away from Old Trafford since Jose Mourinho took charge of the club almost 12 months ago and those rumours intensified in January after heavy interest from clubs in the Chinese Super League.

A move to the Far East would have had serious repercussions for his England career, a move that would all but put the 31 year old in an international retirement sooner than he had planned after his announcement to retire at the end of next year’s World Cup.

But it is a World Cup that he will not want to watch from the sidelines and if that is not to be the case then he needs to be playing first team football on a much more regular basis then he did last season at Old Trafford and with that in mind a move away from Manchester is needed to facilitate that.

With a move to China now very much off the cards the attention now shifts focus to the Premier League and just who exactly will be able to land the 31 year old in this transfer window. The answer to that with the wages that Rooney is on is not many.

No other club in the top six has shown an interest in the player who burst on to the international scene in Euro 2004 under Sven Goran Eriksson so now it is a case of having to work your way down the table to see who Rooney’s new suitors could be.

Thankfully for the player it seems as if he does not need to drop down all that further as it is Everton who are leading the race to acquire services, whether that is a race with just one entrant could be argued but all signs now point to a Goodison return.

It is a move that will eased along by the Manchester United hierarchy due to the fact that they are willing to lose the player without a fee firstly as a thanks to the near 13 years service at the club and also because it means getting £300k a week in wages off the books.

Not only that but they are also willing to subsidise that wage to lessen the burden on any club looking to take on the player who has topped Sir Bobby Charlton’s goalscoring record for both club and country, with a deal like that on the table it is almost a no brainer for Everton to bring him back ‘home’

Rooney has privately said that there has been interest from other top flight clubs but he feels that a return to Everton would be very much the preferred option and it is one that The Toffees are ‘quietly confident’ of completing in the next few days.

Should the move go ahead as expected then it will give Rooney they perfect launchpad to get himself back in the thoughts of Gareth Southgate in a bid to book one of the 23 seats on the England national squad plane that will fly to Russia at the end of next season.

The forward has been overlooked in the last couple of squads but due to his peripheral role at Old Trafford that should come as no real surprise, in fairness it has allowed the England manager to try different options although when that option is Jermain Defoe it does show the dearth of forward options this country has right now.

That is not a detriment to Defoe of course as he has warranted his return to the international setup but when we as a nation are relying on 35 year olds to come into the squad to fill an attacking void then questions do have to be asked about the supply of talent right now.

Although that is an argument for another day, for Rooney the door to the England squad is not shut but obviously in his case he will be locking it behind him in 12 months time. The hope for him now will be that a move and the regular football that should come with it can propel him back into the international limelight for one last hurrah.