STRUCTURAL DEFECT..

There was a time, many years ago, when I used to admire Manchester United for all kinds of reasons.  It may have stemmed from the Busby Babes, who played football with a smile under the guidance of the urbane Sir Matt Busby and my sympathy for them was clearly enhanced by the tragedy of Munich which resulted in the loss of so many lives.

I`m not sure when admiration turned into disenchantment but I suspect it was around the time of `Big` Ron Atkinson who seemed to impose his own brand of arrogance on the club, a quality that has been taken to new heights in recent years.  For me, there have been quite a few times over the years when I have taken immense satisfaction in that bubble of arrogance being pricked.  I especially revelled when my own club Southampton beat them on that glorious 1976 day in the FA Cup Final.  So I admit I`m biased.

But events on the pitch are one thing;  events off the pitch say perhaps more about the nature of the club and we are now witnessing once more the shenenagins that have been the hallmark of `Sir` Alex Ferguson`s tenure at Old Trafford.   Now, no-one can deny the trophies his `management` has brought to the club - I think the total is now 35 -  but it`s the methods used, the absence of any managerial style, the arrogant assumptions, that have perhaps taken a little of the shine away from those successes.  Beckham, Stam, van Nistelrooy, Keane and many more were all shipped out by the club for having the temerity not to slavishly acquiesce with Ferguson`s dictatorial `style,` which seems to rely on handbags, hairdryers, bullying and rant.   Sir Matt Busby he ain`t, never was and never will be.

Rooney`s publicly stated desire to leave may genuinely be because of his perceived lack of ambition by the club but I get the feeling that it might be that he has simply had enough of being treated like some errant schoolboy caught behind the bike shed doing something of which the headmaster disapporoves and so wants to give him a lesson he won`t forget.

Now I hold no candle for Rooney - he might be a decent player but even in the Alice in Wonderland world of Premier League football, no-one but no-one is worth £250,000 a week.   Especially at the same time as HM Gov. is cutting £81billion of expenditure from anything from benefit claims to aircraft non-carriers and leaving at least 490,000 people out of work.  With Manchester United, it seems the ironies just keep coming.

Rooney`s timing is awful and maybe we shouldn`t be surprised at that but in a curious way it`s at least refreshing to suspect that, for once, Ferguson isn`t in charge of the situation. This time, someone else is  and however misguided Rooney might be, it might just be the catalyst for Ferguson to finally pack it in, go away and shuffle off back to the swamp with the rest of the dinosaurs, leaving a great club the chance to begin  restoring at least some of the affection it used to command all those years ago.