Things have been far from rosy for Wayne Rooney for some time. An injury curtailed his excellent season last time and led to a lack of form in the run in to the season finale, an extremely disappointing World Cup, both personally and as a team followed. This season Rooney has only scored one goal, none from open play, has looked desperately short of form and at times enthusiasm with constant press intrusion into his private life to boot. Rumours circulating out of Old Trafford today are that Wayne Rooney’s representative’s have ended contract negotiations with the Man United hierarchy. With players able to discuss terms with other club sin the last 6 months of their contracts, clubs get increasingly twitchy at this sort of thing, especially when Rooney is valued at circa £50million on the open market.

This situation is confused by recent evidence that Rooney has fallen out with his manager and mentor Sir Alex Ferguson. Direct rebuttal to his managers claims that his poor form is to blame on a recurring ankle injury Rooney seems determined to suggest otherwise. This is a risky strategy for sure given that Sir Alex takes no prisoners when it comes to spats with players as Paul Ince, Roy Keane, David Beckham and Japp Stam know only too well. All four high profile Old Trafford stars stepped out of line, became “too big for their boots” and challenged the authority of Sir Alex, to their cost.

Rooney would clearly have no shortage of suitors, Manchester City would love to steal another Red Devil and see Rooney line up with Tevez while Chelsea may spend big if it meant stealing their main rivals main asset. From abroad Barcelona and Real Madrid are more than certain to register interest in one of the game’s top talents. Is this the one occasion where Sir Alex can’t afford to let his man go though? Paul Ince was easily replaced with a young Paul Scholes waiting in the wings, Keane not so easily replaced but was an ageing force so Ferguson just brought forward the inevitable. Beckham took his world superstar status to Madrid but in came a young and hungry Christiano Ronaldo. Even Stam was replaced with ease with eventually Rio Ferdinand. In those four cases United were in a position of buying strength as a wealthy club, now a days the clubs debt looms high and a Rooney sale may be spent on interest payments and not players, you could even point out that Christiano Ronaldo’s £80 million sale has not been reinvested in the first team squad as evidence.

Sir Alex now faces possibly his most challenging situation in all of his years of Manchester United management, whether to stick to his guns and move a troublesome player on at risk of leaving his squad bear of World Class talent or to look to reconcile with Rooney and risk pandering to player power, whatever he does the clock is ticking as Rooney’s contract gets closer to it’s expiry date.