Jan Aage Fjortoft and Julien Laurens agree that Wayne Rooney did the right thing by turning down the chance to interview with the club. There is a time limit. Wayne Rooney said at the beginning of March that he was worried. Half a dozen local reporters sat quietly across the table as the staff were worried. They looked worried as well. One of the most accomplished players in the history of the premier league, the player who has scored the most goals for both England and Manchester United is now the manager of Derby County. Derby was five points from safety and had a tough game at Bournemouth next. Rooney has not had a live event with the press at the training center since he took over as manager a year ago. There was a lot to discuss. Rooney has a beard that is gray. He is heading towards Ernest Hemingway. He moved from D.C. United to Derby County in the early 2020s. He had been sliding down the football pyramid after thirteen wonderful seasons at Manchester United. Friday 3 p.m. is when the Derby vs. Fulham game will be streamed live. On the US edition of ESPN+.
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He had worked and played to his full potential since his first appearance in the premier league at the age of 16. It had taken a toll. He was 34 years old when he arrived in Derbyshire to help with the coaching, but he was an old 34 years old when he rented a car. It is still shiny. The key doesn't move when you turn it.
Rooney wasn't giving up despite his skills fading. He scored six times in the 24 games that remained in the season, but his presence lifted everyone around him.
He was a great leader, according to Derby's Max Bird. My goal was to impress him.
Derby only won one of its first 15 games after the 2020-21 season began. The club was at the bottom of the table. The list of possible successors included Eddie Howe, but Rooney's influence hadn't gone unnoticed.
The situation was dire. There wasn't time for someone to work out what to do.
The younger players were molded byWayne in the way he wanted them to play.
Derby rallied spectacularly, despite Rooney not having managed before. Then it fell. The 3-3 draw against Wednesday on the last day of the season was enough to keep it up.
Derby is back in trouble a year later. With five games left in the season, they are second from bottom and nine points from safety. The club has only spent four outside of England's top two divisions over the past 122 seasons. It is not possible tolegation. That isn't even the most pressing of Rooney's concerns.
Derby County has a lot of problems. There isn't any money. Mel Morris bought the club in 2015. Jim Wheeler, the chairman of RamsTrust, the club's most important supporters, said that since then, he has spent his Candy Crush windfall both liberally and unwisely. He wanted to be the one who took Derby back to the top flight. He gambled. He lost.
At the end of last season, the club was docked nine points for losses that exceeded Financial Fair Play limits. Morris put the club into administration because he wanted to invest another $100 million in the club. There was a further 12-point deduction. The first 21 points Derby accumulated this season would get them back to zero.
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Incoming transfers were forbidden and wages were capped. The players were moved to help pay their bills. Relegation seemed inevitable. Rooney has been able to keep the team safe. Despite a far weaker squad than a year ago, Derby has managed 12 wins and 13 draws in 41 matches. The club would be closer to getting promoted if the penalties weren't there.
Derby was close to getting a new owner. The leading contender withdrew from the process. The reasons are the subject of a lot of speculation. Maybe the demands of the administrators were unreasonable, or maybe Morris was unwilling to return Pride Park to the club. The most important question at this point is whether the club can remain in the Championship or not.
Who will play for them if they do? Since the January window, the administrators have transferred or released eleven players. Only a few are under contract for next season. The future gets worse with each day.
Rooney said they don't know if they have a kit for next season. We don't have enough players.
Rooney had never managed a game before. He is being asked to save a football club. As soon as the game ends, he said, "we're back to this."
He shook his head. His eyes were blue.
He said there was no hiding from it.
It was hard to get excited for the Bournemouth game after that. Rooney said a few words. He smiled and thanked everyone. The news came that Derby County had received a transfer fee that allowed Jozwiak to sign with Charlotte FC. It would allow for more time to meet payroll.
Rooney's success as a manager has taken most observers by surprise. For a long time, he couldn't manage himself.
John O'Shea, a former Manchester United teammate who now coaches Ireland's U21s, said that he was a street footballer.
Rooney was red-carded in the 2006 World Cup for swearing into a television camera and was banned for two matches of the 2012 Euros for kicking an opponent. He was arrested for drunk driving and public intoxication at Dulles Airport outside of Washington D.C. while getting caught in scandals and extramarital affairs.
He had a managerial career in mind. He has always been a thinker and has absorbed as much information as possible.
He moved to Man United. He won five league titles, a cup, and a trophy with a group of teammates that were the most accomplished in the history of football.
He seemed to be the least likely to have a coaching career. It was easy to imagine him as the lord of the manor, teaching one of his four kids how to bend a free kick. He would watch the games with his childhood friends.
Rooney had a different vision. His interest in managing led him back to his previous job at Manchester United and then to MLS. He wanted to understand how football works and to play for as many managers as possible.
Rooney never put on airs. He was a fun-loving, good-natured kid from Croxteth. One of the biggest clubs in the world was where he thrived. He liked it when D.C. United traveled to games on Southwest flights. He would chat with the flight attendant, drink a beer, and watch football videos on his iPad.
Rooney was next to a woman who asked what he did for a living. Rooney told her his son plays soccer. If it seemed like a long way from Old United, Rooney never let on.
Rooney scored 43 goals in less than two seasons in MLS. His decision to leave D.C. for Derby County was met with disappointment. It seemed illogical in terms of visibility, marketing and level of competition. Rooney looked down the road. If he was to manage, he would need to start there.
He said that football is a game where opportunities come up.
Derby County is one of the founding members of the Football League and is located in a city of over one million people. The team was sometimes good, sometimes poor, and sometimes dull. The club won the First Division title in 1972 under the leadership of Brian Clough. He took them all the way to the European Cup semifinals.
Robert Maxwell, the owner of the Daily Mirror, is suspected of being a spy for Russia, and he helped save Derby County from insolvency in 1984. He kept it until he died. Morris spent his way back into insolvency by spending huge sums on players you wouldn't put in your team if you found them sitting on your doorstep.
Ryan Hills wrote in his book on Derby County that "Take away the firings, the courtroom battles, the financial collapses, the wrath of foreign imports, and what do you have?"
Derby County was represented by Rooney. He could get better at leadership and management. He was a force in the changing room.
He was brutal when he was a player and would let anyone know if the standards weren't met.
He hadn't changed. He wanted to play football with the same drive and desire that he did. He let his anger show after the loss at Luton.
Rooney insists that he wasn't out of control as he appeared. He says he could switch it off, but it was how he pulled the best from himself.
As a manager, he has worked to limit those outbursts. He understands that standing in front of a team is different from sitting in front of a locker. You have to act in a certain way.
He was on the edge as a player, but now he sees him at the training ground or on the pitch. He has a great calmness about him.
Rooney looks like every manager he has had. He shouted encouragement as his arms folded at his chest or behind his back. Occasionally, after a particularly uninspired play, he will drop his head in frustration.
He consults with his assistants inside and outside the coaches box. Rooney was promoted to a leadership council of four equal co-managers, each of whom brought a different perspective, at the time that Cocu left.
Liam Rosenior, one of the four, said it was a strange situation. I and Wayne are both ambitious. We all sat in a hotel room to figure it out.
Rooney was given the position after two months. Three people left one of them. Rooney has two assistants. Many of Derby County's young players were coached by Justin Walker, who is a decade older than Rooney. The U18s won the title. Rosenior is immersed in strategy and tactics. Rooney handles motivation.
Rooney said the biggest challenge was getting the players to believe in themselves and their teammates. If you deduct 21 points, you can stay in the division. We still have a lot of work to do, but the players know my expectations.
Those include trying to implement the tactics the coaching staff has devised. Rooney can accept the outcome if the majority of the team does that.
Rooney said that they know when they let themselves down.
Rosenior has been an influence. His father was the manager of four clubs and the national team. Before he was a teenager, Liam would sit at his side and help with set plays. He was hired by Cocu, but stayed on after Rooney became manager.
Rosenior said they have the same values. We want a group of players and staff to come in and enjoy what they do every day. To trust the process. To be loyal to something bigger than themselves.
The approach has worked and the atmosphere within the club is the best I have seen in a long time.
Rooney constantly watches the mood of the club because the mindset of banding together against long odds is crucial to Derby County's success.
Rosenior said that he would be looking over at a player while they were eating lunch. Something is up. He doesn't normally eat like that, but that's the level of detail he'll go into. He can smell it in people. It is a gift.
It is not just the players. Rooney inquires about the coaches, the fitness staff and the laundry lady. A soft side to him that I don't think has been reflected. That has been his greatest strength.
The all-but-hopeless situation might be ideal for a new manager who knows the world is watching.
It is the perfect stage, according to the man who now manages at Chester. He thrives on the bad publicity and bad spells he has been given, and he has made many comebacks from bad publicity and bad spells. He has created a siege mentality to where they are all together.
It was because of that that all of Pride Park seemed to totter when the first approach was made to Rooney's agent about the position. Rooney was poised to move to the premier league a year into his managerial career, like Frank Lampard, who left after one season at Derby County. He was a fan of the club.
Rooney claims that he stopped negotiations before they became serious. He says that he would be interested in managing the club someday. He preached the importance of sticking together no matter what the situation was.
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Derby is young and old at the same time. Rooney has three players around his age, 11 of them 21 or younger, and not many between. Davies and Colin Kazim-Richards are used by Rooney to impart wisdom to their younger teammates.
Davies said that he would give some snippets to the group.
The dichotomy does not work on the field. Tom Lawrence and Ryan Allsop are the only two Derby players who are in their prime. That means that the club is forced to use a style that isn't really exciting.
Rooney would have been upset at how often balls are sent back to Allsop after a change in possession, often from the far side of the center line. The Pride Park fans, who faithfully back Rooney, seem to understand that an undermanned team can sometimes steal a point with such an approach.
Bournemouth, a team that seems destined to return to the premier league without scoring, dominated possession at Rooney's side. The away supporters chanted "Wayne Rooney!" There wasn't much that Rooney could do.
The difference in value between the two teams was what he said after Derby lost the game 2-0.
Football is dull and better than no football. Even if a suitor steps up to save the club in the coming days, a change in ownership is likely to be freighted with additional restrictions to make sure the club is sustainable and to deter future indiscretions. Surely it will happen if Derby doesn't get demoted in the next few weeks.
It would be unfair to expect Rooney to stay when it does, says Wheeler, the head of the club's supporters.
Wheeler said that his stock is high at the moment. He needs to be able to take advantage of that.
Despite the grimness of the situation, the supporters keep cheering. Chanting "Wayne Rooney!" Wayne Rooney will be the best for a while.
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