Jose Mourinho Has Found an Effective Role for Wayne Rooney at Manchester United

Jose Mourinho might just have found a useful role for Wayne Rooney at Manchester United. If the club captain can be convinced that a squad rotation role is the best way to preserve his United career, he could become something akin to the asset Ryan Giggs was in Sir Alex Ferguson’s last couple of seasons at Old Trafford.

Giggs started 19, 14 and 12 Premier League games in Ferguson’s last three seasons, making six, 11 and 10 substitute appearances, respectively.

Of course, he was a good deal older then than Rooney is now. However, Rooney has been a first-team regular since he was 16 years old, and nothing about his career would suggest he has had the same kind of obsessive dedication to physical professionalism that Giggs consistently displayed.

Rooney not back to his best yet, but performances very good. We won’t see Rooney of 5 years ago but people far to quick to write him off!!

— Everything Man Utd (@everything_utd) November 25, 2016

It might be difficult to convince Rooney that not being in the starting XI is in his best interest, but the evidence is beginning to stack up.

Mourinho has been receiving a good deal of criticism lately for the job he’s done at United. Of course, the league table makes unpleasant reading, but one of the unequivocal positives has been his handling of his captain.

Some historical context is needed here to make sense of his decisions. First, there is the fact that as Ferguson was leaving the club, he appeared to be nudging Rooney out the door with him. Rather than accepting Ferguson’s implied take that Rooney’s time at the top was over, David Moyes instead awarded him a massive contract.

That contract is central to the argument that Mourinho has been artful in his management of Rooney. At the time of its signing, the BBC reported it to be worth £300,000 per week in wages until the end of the 2018/19 season.

Read the full press release on @WayneRooney’s new contract: http://t.co/e5uDeCEJdg #rooneymufc pic.twitter.com/5tOOk2ZkUA

— Manchester United (@ManUtd) February 21, 2014

While it’s hard to think about that decision without a baffled, slow shake of the head, given there was already some evidence of Rooney’s decline at that point, it is nonetheless the hand Mourinho was dealt. It’s the hand Louis van Gaal was dealt too, and his approach was to make Rooney captain and crowbar him into every starting XI come what may.

That yielded little fruit. The excellent performances he put in under Van Gaal can be counted on one hand. It was, in fact, one of the Dutchman’s most egregious errors.

For some reason, it looked at first as if Mourinho would be continuing the pattern.

Rooney started the first six league games of the season. He got assists against Southampton and Hull—the latter …

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