Wayne Rooney deal: Manchester madness, mobs and the Jose Mourinho mystery

Claim, counter-claim, fevered speculation, seething discontent, banners, chanting, internet forums going into meltdown, a nocturnal rattle of the security gates by a bunch of balaclava-clad heavies: what a way to conduct contract negotiations.

Wayne Rooney - Manchester madness, mobs and the Jose Mourinho mystery
Back in the fold: for Wayne Rooney it was a U-turn too rapid even for the Stig to attempt Credit: Photo: EPA

Not even Manchester – a city which has lived through everything from George Best going Awol and Eric Cantona going piscatorial to Roy Keane going bonkers – has witnessed anything like the shenanigans that have embraced Wayne Rooney this past week.

It is hard to find better words to summarise developments than those used by Sir Alex Ferguson in somewhat less fraught circumstances more than a decade ago: "Football, bloody hell."

It began, the maddest 10 days in the life of England's most prominent sportsman, with his comment in the mixed zone after England's game with Montenegro. When Rooney claimed he was not injured and he did not know why Ferguson persisted in saying he was, it unleashed a series of events unprecedented even in the overwrought orbit of Manchester United.

The comments were workshopped up in the media as evidence of a gaping rift between player and manager, there was talk of the old disciplinarian, tiring of his former favourite's wayward personal behaviour, dispatching him from the inner circle. He was, so the rumour insisted, being frozen out.

And then came Ferguson's triumphant press conference on Tuesday in which he revealed that it was Rooney himself who was agitating for a transfer.

Suddenly that injury talk took on a new perspective: here was Rooney breaking the long-established Old Trafford code of silence perhaps to precipitate a row. It would figure, since Ferguson added that the player had told him he was looking to move on to better-remunerated climes.

Unusually co-operating with the media, the manager's candid, portrayal of the hurt patriarch utterly changed the way the issue was reported. Now, it was Rooney the villain. Suddenly the issue centred on money, and in particular the greedy search for more by the player and his agent, Paul Stretford.

As the headlines stacked up, it was hard to see how Rooney could retrench. Compared with Ferguson's magisterial performance, the player's subsequent attempt to regain the initiative with his statement that he was only seeking to move because the debt-encumbered Glazer regime could no longer sustain his personal ambition, looked wheedling and self-serving.

From that position, a rapprochement seemed impossible. The widespread view was that a deal had been already been done between Stretford and Manchester City. The sum of £260,000 a week was confidently repeated as fact.

For those who report on the game, there was something teasingly appropriate about such a conclusion. It beautifully articulated the plotline of the modern game. It had everything. Here were United, their prominence largely built on money, latterly suffering from acquisition by foreign raiders, unable to keep possession of their most valuable property. The loss of it to their significantly more endowed rivals down the road was particularly poignant. Ferguson's noisy neighbours were drowning out the waning Old Trafford roar.

As for Rooney, well what did we expect from a modern footballer? Mercenaries all, they were motivated only by finance. It was a drama almost Greek in its certainties. Whatever happens, everyone agreed, he could not now stay at United.

And then came the stunning news that he was. After all that, after the horrible fissures of the week, there he was grinning outside the club offices, the manager's arm once more paternally wrapped around his shoulder. For Ferguson it ranks among his most significant victories, so quickly to rescue an apparently irretrievable position. For Rooney it was a U-turn too rapid even for the Stig to attempt.

Why did he re-sign? The conclusion must be that even an agent as financially motivated as Stretford saw how damaging this week has been to his client's image. The Rooney brand was already tarnished by unchallenged allegations of infidelity in his private life. Now he was proving to be as disloyal in his professional dealings. His diminished currency was perfectly summed up by the banner flourished by Old Trafford denizens during the Champions League encounter on Wednesday night: "Who's the whore now Wayne?"

Not many companies would be lining up to associate themselves with the figure created by those Ferguson-generated headlines, a greedy, money-obsessed cheat. After his dalliance with a prostitute became public, he had already lost his contract with Coke Zero. Another couple of desertions from the Rooney commercial portfolio and not even the padding of a pay cheque from the oil-delirious City would compensate.

Stretford is not renowned for his embrace of the long game. But he must have seen it was better to take the money offered by United which at least gave opportunity to repair the brand. Besides, £160,000 a week is hardly desultory compensation.

More than that though, it must have hurt Rooney. It was not just the balaclava lads turning up at his house oozing threat, it was the universal howl of derision that greeted his manoeuvres. As Best, Cantona, Keane and David Beckham all discovered, in most football controversies there will be support, sympathy and understanding from someone, even if only the diehard fan. For Rooney there was none.

Frank Skinner's hugely cheered meltdown on Have I Got News For You about Rooney's treachery summed up the wider mood. He was public enemy No 1. He had already, with Stretford's encouragement, suffered for deserting his childhood love, Everton. To do it again – and worse, remain in the same city – would have looked bleak to someone who – as we all do – likes to be liked.

As for his ambition, his hunger to win trophies, the very need that had motivated him to seek a move in the first place, I have a theory about what may have finally calmed his fears about United's future. There is absolutely nothing concrete to provide confirmation, it is the wildest of speculation, but in this week when speculation has been the chief currency, let's rehearse it anyway.

Throughout the saga, there has been only one figure in football who, unequivocally, insisted Rooney would stay at Old Trafford. Not even Ferguson projected such confidence. But Jose Mourinho, asked after Real Madrid's midweek game whether he might put in a bid for the player, said: "I hope not. I love Man United, I love Sir Alex and I love Rooney. I think they belong together."

At the time, he seemed uncharacteristically romantic. But what if he knew something we didn't? If what Rooney sought were assurances about the future, about which world-class signings he might expect to join him at Old Trafford over the next five years of his contract, then what better one to give than the comfort that the successor to Ferguson had already been arranged? Who wouldn't stay if they knew Jose was coming next?

After all, this has been the week when the prenuptial agreement was embedded in British law.