Wayne Rooney is chasing down Manchester United’s all-time goal scoring record.
The England star will no doubt write his name in Old Trafford folklore.
But there will always be one fly in the ointment that tarnishes his glittering United career – the two times he tried to quit Old Trafford.
Sir Alex Ferguson said Rooney tried to leave in 2010, and then in 2013 after being left out of the starting XI for a Champions League meeting with Real Madrid, before making a dramatic U-turn and signing a new deal.
But the former Everton man claims that while he may have wanted to leave United, he never made that desire official by putting in a request to leave.
“I said [to Sir Alex] if you’re not going to play me it might be better if I moved on,” Rooney said in the upcoming BBC documentary, Wayne Rooney – The Man Behind The Goals.
“But I never put in a transfer request. I don’t know why it came out that way.”
He says that Sir Alex was the reason he came to United – to work with one of the greats of the game.
“In my eyes the best manager of all-time. For him to be interested in me and wanting me to play under him, there was nowhere else I was going to go.”
