22 October 2010

It's wrong Ian, but not as wrong as your head sir

"You buy a house you own the deeds, it's paid for if you're lucky enough
to do that, it's yours. What if it's 24 years you had it for and then it can
toddle off and do what it likes, it's not right is it?"


It's not often I agree with Ian Holloway, but on this point about housing I certainly do. If your house just toddled off one day even though you owned it, there would certainly be something wrong. With this specific case of affairs one can only assume you'd suddenly began existing in a cartoon as this is the only circumstance I can think of where a house might walk out on you.

I'm afraid I can't agree with any of the other arguments from his latest alarmingly incoherent sermon. Forget the impossibility of inanimate objects suddenly becoming mobile under their own steam, the fundamental difference between owning a house and club owning a footballer is of course one can't "own" a person. This is slavery.

Clubs only hire a player, but once the contract expires both parties have no obligations to each other. In return for wages the player carries out his duties each week and there the relationship ends at least from a legal point of view no?

I can't find any sympathy for Ferguson here on any level. He's built his career on bullying other clubs out of their best players and now he's on the end of a bit of bullying himself it's suddenly a huge betrayal? How did he get Rooney in the first place? By the same means Manchester City will eventually get hold of him...having greater financial clout and greater ambition.

They stole Louis Saha from Fulham, Rio Ferdinand from Leeds, Rooney from Everton and Berbatov from Totterington all with the same tactic. Now their financial house of cards has collapsed and that leverage they have enjoyed for the past two decades has gone, they're playing the victim and Ferguson's preaching about loyalty and respect. Frookin hypocrite.

* * *

Obviously this new five-year deal Rooney has signed after suddenly being convinced Manchester United are awesome after all is a compromise, similar to the one they reached with fake Ronaldo; sign a new contract now so we definitely get a return on our investment in you, stay until the summer so we can have more time to find a replacement and you can leave no questions asked then. This now gets the fans and press off both of their backs and Rooney gets his move along with an increased wage for the rest of the season.

The problem of course is that now there really will be cause for fans' "Judas" chants that are aired when these transfers take place. Had he left in January he could have done so perfectly legitimately as it's clear United are shite and have no money to not be shite in the future. And I doubt his team mates will be as easily appeased given he has spent the week explaining to the football media how shit they all are.

He's now pledged his future to United twice. The first time he may have meant it, but this time he clearly doesn't and that, to quote Ian Holloway, is wrong. I can't wait to hear what the Blackppol manager will have to say about this in the summer when Rooney poses for pictures at City's ground with his new manager having decided that Man United couldn't match his ambitions after all.

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