Sir Alex Ferguson: “Wayne Rooney would be a great player in any era”

Sir Alex Ferguson believes Wayne Rooney could have excelled “in any era” and has compared the Manchester United captain to club legend Sir Bobby Charlton.

Rooney, after facing his former club Everton on Wednesday, will be making his 520th appearances since joining as an 18-year-old in 2004.

Ferguson, who managed Rooney for nine of his 12 seasons before retiring after United’s last title-winning season in 2012/13, Spoke nothing but praise highly of Rooney.

Speaking to the official United programme, Ferguson said: “He was an exciting signing in 2004. It was fairly shortly after I’d got rid of the idea of retiring and changed my mind, and I had to rethink about how we were going to take the club forward.

“When you make the decision to retire, you stop thinking, but once I decided to stay I started thinking again and it was really centered around bringing energy back into the team by looking at young players.

Louis van Gaal says he was very quickly struck by the respect Rooney’s team-mates had for him at United and he had no hesitation in making him his captain.

Van Gaal, also in the testimonial programme, said: “I was very quickly convinced of his personality and that’s why he was easy to work with. I quickly decided he would be my captain because I saw also the attitude of his fellow players towards him.

“They approached him always with a lot of respect and that’s also important when you have to install a captain. It is very important that he is seen by his fellow players as a very important person in the dressing room, and there is no question that he is very important at United”

Rooney also drew praise from his newest manager Jose Mourinho, who called the 30-year-old’s achievements “simply incredible”.

The United boss said: “Wayne has provided many memorable goals and performances in his time here and I am sure he will provide many more memorable moments for United in the coming years.”