Yeah, About That: Wayne Rooney Reverses Course, Signs Five-Year Deal With Manchester United

In a fantastic twist of irony, Wayne Rooney will be out injured for the next three weeks after signing a new five-year contract to keep him at Old Trafford. Maybe those benchings because Rooney was “injured” weren’t a hoax after all and he’s actually having fitness issues. Rooney injured his ankle, or possibly aggravated an existing ankle injury, during training on Tuesday.

As a result of the injury, Rooney missed a Champions League tie against Bursaspor and will miss the return leg in Bursa, as well as a Carling Cup tie against Wolverhampton Wanderers, as well as Premier League matches against Stoke City, Tottenham Hotspur, and the aforementioned Wolves. The current time frame for his recovery indicates that Rooney will not be on the field for the Manchester derby against Manchester City on November 10th, but it’s hard to believe that Rooney won’t get himself fit for that match unless their are major setbacks in his recovery.

While death threats and graffiti played out during the night, Rooney and his camp were obviously inching closer to a deal that would see the England International put pen to paper to earn an astonishing £180,000 per week at United.

While the out of form striker flip-flopped on his early week statements, comments in which he stated his desire to leave the club due to United’s ‘lack of ambition’, it seems only now as the dust settles, Rooney and agent Paul Stretford were biding their time and leveraging the club for a higher wage packet.

SB Nation’s Manchester United blog, The Busby Babe, has this to say about Wayne Rooney and the possibility of his leaving the team.

[Rooney’s off-field issues] are similar in size and magnitude as David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo. The people around them got in their heads and gave them an inflated sense of ego, combined with multi-million pound endorsement deals and eventually had a public spat with the gaffer. Both were shown the door and both regretted the decision afterwords

According to The Guardian, Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney wants out of his contract with the club. Tensions surfaced last week after England’s Euro 2012 qualifying match against Montenegro. When reporters asked about the ankle injury Sir Alex Ferguson had mentioned several times in the past few weeks, Rooney denied the injury, stating that he didn’t know why his manager kept mentioning it.

After publicly disagreeing with Ferguson, Rooney again found himself on the bench for this weekend’s 2-2 draw against West Bromwich Albion. Although it could be construed that it’s lack of form that caused United’s talisman to lose time on the pitch, it’s fairly clear that this time, it was indeed a warning to Rooney: do not cross Sir Alex. The initial benching is thought to be a reaction to the negative press about Rooney’s personal life, with allegations linking him to a prostitute filling the tabloids.