SAF: Watch Wazza Fly …
Telegraph: Sir Alex Ferguson has predicted Wayne Rooney will take his career to another level with Manchester United next season.
He believes the 21-year-old will reap the benefits of his first football-free summer for four years.
Thanks to a suspension which ruled him out of England’s Euro 2008 qualifier against Estonia at the end of last season, Rooney arrived on United’s Far East tour 11 days ago, having been out of action since the FA Cup final defeat by Chelsea on May 19.
With the curtain due to fall on the four-game Asia trip with today’s match against Guangzhou Pharmaceutical in China, Rooney has already shown the energy and vitality in the earlier tour matches to support his manager’s comments.
”Wayne’s incredible, a very strong character and he will be a big player next season, believe me,” said Ferguson. ”He’ll have a great season because this is the first time since he joined the club that he will have had a proper pre-season with us.
“The likes of Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo are young lads who could play all day long, but the summer break will benefit everyone because they have been away for a long time. Wayne is the first to the training ground every morning. It’s unbelievable, but he just loves football and training.”
Rooney is set to partner Chinese forward Dong Fangzhou in attack against Guangzhou with the United future of Alan Smith appearing ever more uncertain. Smith is re-considering a £6 million move to Middlesbrough while Everton and Aston Villa are both understood to be preparing rival bids.
United will continue to listen to offers for Smith even though they might fail in their efforts to sign Carlos Tevez from West Ham before next month’s transfer deadline.
“Will Alan’s situation change if we don’t sign Tevez? Well, we’re working on the assumption that Tevez will be coming,” said United chief executive David Gill.
”As the manager said the other day, there is no plan B which demonstrates how we think it’s going to be resolved. A number of clubs have called about Alan and we’ve told them the situation. That has not resulted in any firm offers but I had a text from a club yesterday about him, so we’ll see what happens.”
