Bold Wayne Rooney move will pay for itself as Derby County bring legend back to England

Derby County started their 2019/20 campaign at Huddersfield on Monday night with a masterful performance to come away with a fine 2-1 win, but it’s occurrences off the field that have made the headlines in both local and national media.
Wayne Rooney  of DC United celebrates after a goal was scored during the DC United vs the Vancouver Whitecaps FC match in Washington DC on July 14, 2018. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP/Getty Images)Wayne Rooney  of DC United celebrates after a goal was scored during the DC United vs the Vancouver Whitecaps FC match in Washington DC on July 14, 2018. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP/Getty Images)
Wayne Rooney of DC United celebrates after a goal was scored during the DC United vs the Vancouver Whitecaps FC match in Washington DC on July 14, 2018. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP/Getty Images)

Wayne Rooney is to join the Rams in January in a player/coach capacity and, for me, this is quite an astounding coup for the club.

When I first heard about it, I thought it was some kind of wind up.

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Rooney flew into the country on Tuesday morning and was confirmed by the club yesterday.

Now many of the keyboard financial in the know ‘experts’ are claiming that this will finally tip us into exceeding Profitability and Sustainability rules and we will be heading for severe sanctions by the EFL in the not too distant future.

Many claim this without doing any actual homework or without any structured thought before coming to their conclusions.

First of all, many big wage earners are off the books.

Bradley Johnson, Jacob Butterfield, David Nugent, Nick Blackman etc will have been on quite generous terms and, although I’m not privy to their exact earnings, that will make a serious contribution to the £80,000-£100,000 a week wages some are claiming our new signing will be banking.

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Also there must be a reason for him taking the number 32 shirt!

Our club sponsors 32 Red are reportedly paying a handsome sum to have their logo on our playing kits.

Most comments have actually been positive and favourable tweets on social media has actually seen some good constructive voices being heard from fans of our main rivals from across Brian Clough Way.

What people have to see and realise too, when making their own judgement is that Wayne Rooney is a name known world wide and is a modern day legend. His name will still attract companies and bring in off field revenue.

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Those who question whether he can still perform at 34, which he will be in January, need to watch some MLS. He is a standout player.

I believe he would easily be a 15 goal striker in the Championship.

He might not still have the pace of 10 years ago, but his footballing brain and natural instinctive play is worth a yard or two alone.

I’ll be interested to see how many season tickets are sold over the next few weeks.

There can’t be many left as it is. I predict full houses will be the norm in January if not before and our printing department in the club shop will be working overtime.

Exciting times indeed!