Rooney to play in Man Utd friendly against AIK Fotball

David Moyes will order Wayne Rooney to travel with Manchester United and be available for the pre-season friendly against AIK Fotball on August 6th in Stockholm despite the striker being unhappy at the club and wanting to leave.

Moyes, speaking after United’s 3-2 defeat to Yokohama F-Marinos in Japan, was asked if Rooney would play in the friendly in Stockholm. “Yes. He is coming on,” the manager said. “He is doing light jogging now. The feedback I am getting from home is that he is progressing. We have said he is not for sale and that hasn’t changed.”

Rooney is unsettled owing to a breakdown in his relationship with the club that began with Alex Ferguson. This reached a tipping point when Rooney met Ferguson towards the end of last season and asked for assurances about his first-team place.

The former manager stated that Rooney had made an official transfer request, which United now accept he did not do. The striker believes that Ferguson, who has become a director at Old Trafford and was the man who drove Moyes’s appointment, remains a powerful voice at the club.

With United standing firm that Rooney cannot leave, the onus is on the player to make a formal transfer request to try to force his departure, with Chelsea his intended club.

United were sluggish and appeared disjointed defensively against the F-Marinos, conceding within 27 seconds from Marquinhos before taking a 2-1 lead through Jesse Lingard and an own goal by Masakazu Tashiro. But strikes from the hosts’ Fabio and Yoshihito Fujita consigned United to defeat.

After his side’s second loss in three tour games, Moyes said: “I am disappointed with the goals we conceded. We had a lot of opportunities to finish the game off. . . We didn’t take them. It was a tough game. They are decent and played well.

“The biggest thing was the effort the players had to put in. The players worked really hard.

"You could tell how hot it was and we were trying to get as many of them through 90 minutes as possible. Some did very well and we were pleased with that."
Guardian Service