Everton Didn’t Want Me Anymore, Says Wayne Rooney
Jul 13, 2018 at 3:09 PM
Wayne Rooney has revealed that the professional Liverpool-based football club Everton “made it clear” they wanted him to leave the club before his move to D.C. United, last month. Rooney failed to find consistency in his boyhood club.
Rooney returned to Goodison Park in July 2017 following a trophy-laden 13-year stint at top-notch club Manchester United (MU). He scored 11 goals for the Toffees, finishing 2017-18 as their top scorer.
The 32-year-old Rooney failed to find consistency in an often-struggling side. New manager Marco Silva and director of football Marcel Brands confirmed in June that the former England captain was in talks with MLS club DC.
The forward finally completed the move on June 28. He signed a three-and-a-half-year contract, suggesting at the time that the decision to leave Merseyside was not just down to him.
He has now expanded on the reasons behind his move. Rooney told ESPN: “Obviously at Manchester United that [playing] wasn’t happening as much as I would have liked and I quite easily could have stayed there with two years left on my contract and picked up the wages and been happy with that and that’s it.”
“But I wanted to play, went back to Everton and had a year there, then as I’ve said before, Everton made it clear towards the end of the season that they’d be happy for me to leave,” he asserted.
The former Man Utd forward further added: “For whatever reason, I still don’t know. I felt I was doing okay, I was top goalscorer [despite] playing most of the season from midfield. But that’s football. And that gave me a decision to make, and I made this decision.”
“I said to Everton, ‘Listen, I’m not a kid and if this [leaving the club] is what you want, tell me. If you want me to stay, tell me’ and we talked about it,” he concluded.