Manchester United will welcome Rooney back - but they should have sold him sooner

The hashtag was FarewellToALegend. The video was glossily produced to a backdrop of mood music and a soundtrack of commentary of goals scored and trophies won, interspersed with the words of Sir Alex Ferguson, Rio Ferdinand, Ryan Giggs and Wayne Rooney himself. It was the sort of appreciative goodbye permitted when Rooney returned to his beloved Everton after 13 years at Manchester United.

A reunion should bring plenty more praise. Old players tend to be welcomed back to Old Trafford. Rooney should be no exception on Sunday. The numbers speak for themselves: 253 goals in 559 games, five Premier League trophies, three Champions League finals, part of the 2008 champions of Europe. He joined at 18, left at 31. United got the summer of his career, Everton the spring and autumn.

But it is also easier to applaud when he has joined a club who do not appear a threat. Generosity comes more naturally when there is not the air of rejection. Rooney’s history offered the possibility of rancorous reunions in other circumstances. He flirted with Manchester City in 2010. He told United colleagues he was joining Chelsea in 2013.

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And it might have been better if he had gone. Not seven years ago, because he went on to score in that season’s Champions League final and chipped in with 34 goals the following campaign, but in 2013. That may have been beneficial for Rooney, who would have been spared the agonies of David Moyes’ and Louis van Gaal’s United and who might have been rejuvenated by Jose Mourinho when nearer his peak. United’s recent past would have been rather different had Rooney been sold four years ago. It may have been superior; if not initially, then eventually. And it may have spared them the problem of what to do with Rooney as he declined on their watch.

Selling Rooney would have allowed United to bring in at least £20 million. It would have meant they enjoyed his prime years while recouping most of the funds they spent on him in 2004. It would have been a good financial deal for United – in those days, £20 million bought more than 40 percent of Kyle Walker – and arguably a fine footballing move.

Rooney delivered 19 goals the following season. He was one of the few, along with David de Gea and Adnan Januzaj, to acquit themselves reasonably in Moyes’ reign. He felt a pet project for Moyes, too, with acquaintances renewed nine years after the Scot had to sell Rooney. Yet granting him a primacy came at a cost: to Danny Welbeck, to Javier Hernandez, to Shinji Kagawa and to Juan Mata. So, later, when Van Gaal afforded his captain “privileges” in selection. Perhaps others, from Robin van Persie to Ander Herrera via the often unfortunate Mata, suffered because of that preferential treatment.

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Ferguson had hinted at a different future when dropping Rooney against Real Madrid, claiming, two months later, that he had submitted a transfer request, and omitting him from the squad amid the sentimental selections of his last two games; had the managerial knight delayed his retirement, Rooney would have been sold and his name added to the victims of Ferguson’s famous feuds. Yet the personal, perhaps petty, element of it should not obscure the reality that Ferguson recognised Rooney was waning long before others did. It was a reason he prioritised Van Persie.

And Rooney’s three least productive campaigns at Old Trafford were his last three; while United’s tribute video featured a disproportionate number of strikes and celebrations by a man wearing the captain’s armband, he only scored 37 times after being elevated from the ranks. He was hampered by Van Gaal’s brand of football before he was sidelined by Mourinho.

The Portuguese could dispense with Rooney in the summer without controversy; partly because it was so apparent the veteran’s finest days are behind him, but partly also because he was operating from a position of strength. Rewind to 2013 and Moyes was operating from a position of weakness.

United had a large budget and were utterly unable to spend it. They could not lure Gareth Bale north. They could not secure Cesc Fabregas. They could not even land Leighton Baines. They ended a window with Marouane Fellaini and no one else. Ed Woodward’s faltering first forays into the transfer market meant they were afraid to sell Rooney, just as they were held hostage in granting him a ludicrously generous new contract the following February: had the forward’s departure followed Ferguson’s, it may have looked like the empire was ending.

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Results and performances duly lent that impression anyway but United, who were not concerned how they were perceived when selling Mark Hughes, Paul Ince and Andrei Kanchelskis in 1995, were more worried about appearances.

They have had ample time to regret the missed opportunities in the summer of 2013, when they had the pulling power that the assumption of permanent success brought, the resources and ambition to pursue some of Europe’s brightest talents and the inability to hire any of them, leading in turn to a Galacticos policy that backfired with Angel Di Maria and Radamel Falcao and which betrayed a desperation to be wanted by anyone. Meanwhile, Rooney became a symbol of United’s fondness for the famous, the best-paid player in the league but not the best.

A new era could have begun with an ambitious rebuild, permitted by the interest in Rooney. Instead, he and United declined together. Instead of a fond farewell in 2017, it could have been a savvy sale in 2013. In that case, Rooney would have already returned to Old Trafford, without quite the same acclaim for longevity and supposed loyalty or having overhauled Sir Bobby Charlton’s goal record, but perhaps with United able to shape the side around a player who, increasingly, was picked on reputation not performance. Their last few years may have been better if the legend had reached the end rather sooner.