Waching daily Jul 5 2017

Wayne Rooney is going home to finish his career with Everton

Wayne Rooneys career is about to turn full circle this week as he prepares to leave Manchester United. ONCE a Blue, always a Red, now a Blue again.

The wheel has turned full circle for Wayne Rooney – you could call it a fairytale return.

Manchester Uniteds record goalscorer is preparing to rejoin his boyhood club Everton. A fairytale if you consider you are surplus to requirements at one of the world's biggest clubs.

But when it came to options for Rooney, none were as attractive as a return to the club he supported as a boy and first dreamt of playing for.

His bedroom was adorned with the Goodison heroes that he always wanted to emulate.

He soon did and when Rooney revealed THAT T-shirt saying "Once a Blue always a Blue" the Everton fans who adored their new teenage star hoped against hope it could really be for ever.

Wayne Rooney is due to complete his move back to Everton by the end of the week.

By late 2004, however, the Manchester United supporters were chanting 'Once a Blue, always a Red' after their club took England's brightest young striker to Old Trafford for £26. 5million.

What a journey it has been since. It was one he did not want to end but even he could not stop the fading of the floodlights at Old Trafford.

Wayne Rooney has suffered a decline in recent years at Manchester United. Training alone, his future in doubt, Rooney cut a slightly sad figure when pictured on his early return to Carrington last month.

Manchester United just wanted his £250,000-a-week wages off the books as they embarked on another big-spending summer.

Ronald Koeman has not hidden his desire to bring Rooney back to Everton. But nobody from the MLS was kicking down the door. The Chinese option was not one he ever truly craved.

As for the big guns in the Premier League… who of those considered serious title contenders was going to enter into negotiations?. Not on the basis of the last 12 months.

But Everton will not be getting the same Rooney that burst onto the scene with them as a teenager. But Toffees boss Ronald Koeman never hid his desire to take 31-year-old Rooney "home".

He saw something still there which could push his club on from their seventh-placed finish last term. Wayne Rooney got off to a dream start for United in 2004 when he scored a hat-trick against Fenerbahce on his debut.

Rooney said after lifting the Europa League trophy in May that he had a big decision to make.

Football legends give their opinions on the decline of Wayne Rooney. In truth it had already been made for him last October by United boss Jose Mourinho.

It was then that SunSport revealed how Mourinho had told his captain that if he wanted regular first-team football, he would have to look for it elsewhere. It was the beginning of the end for Rooney.

Mourinho's planning for the future was to be without him. Rooney may have lifted two major trophies last season but he did not play any part in United's EFL Cup final triumph over Southampton.

Wayne Rooney has won countless honours with Manchester United. And he was only brought on to the pitch in Stockholm in the Europa League final with a minute to go and with victory assured as the Red Devils  led  Ajax 2-0.

To be fair to Rooney, he celebrated both triumphs as if he had played and influenced the result. He was happy for his team-mates, still proud to be their captain - but inside there will have been sorrow.

Sorrow that, after being the main man at the club for so long, he was now an afterthought, no longer needed.

Wayne Rooney failed to get onto the pitch during Uniteds EFL Cup win last season. The club's record goalscorer was being shown the door.

The fighter inside him was telling Rooney he could come back, but the team-sheets were increasingly telling him he could not.

He had publicly accepted two summers ago that he was no longer the same Wayne Rooney that flooded the Premier League archives with goals of genius.

He believed he could reinvent himself in midfield where that sudden burst of pace which he had lost would not be needed.

Wayne Rooney only got on for the final few minutes of the Europa League victory over Ajax. But others have galloped past him.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Marcus Rashford, Ander Herrera, Paul Pogba — these are now the names filling the roles he hoped might lengthen his United career. Too often last season he was losing possession and misplacing passes with fans groaning. He looked exasperated, too.

Not that such form will be acceptable at Goodison Park, either.

Jose Mourinho told Rooney that he would have to leave in order to get regular football. The former England captain is not heading for the same cosy existence that may have been afforded him in America or the Far East.

It might be the same old ground but this is a very different Everton that he is returning to.

In the 13 years he has been away, the Toffees have finished in the top seven nine times, with four of those in the top five.

In the same time period up to his departure the club only finished in the top half twice.

Ronald Koeman will not tolerate any passengers in his Everton side next season. Koeman and the Everton fans are thinking as big now as they have done for 30 years and they do not want a passenger along for his final ride.

Rooney needs to find his top form again, probably in the No 10 role he really thought would be his future at United. If not he risks tainting his image in front of those who first lauded him.

As for the United faithful, they will prefer to remember the player who lit up Old Trafford with a hat-trick on his debut against Fenerbahce and shone brightly for a good ten years more.

Wayne Rooney has publicly accepted that he is no longer the same player as his early years Wayne Rooney is presented a trophy for being Manchester United leading all time top scorer.

In 13 years he has hit a club-record 253 goals in 559 games, winning 12 major honours including five Prem titles and the Champions League.

At his very best he was a true United great worthy of standing with the "Holy Trinity" of Best, Law and Charlton. Worthy of a statue in his own right.

Now it's a new dawn, a new day .  and he might just be feeling good.