Jose Mourinho’s attempts to unsettle Wayne Rooney will be frustrated by Manchester United’s policy of refusing to sell top players to Barclays Premier League rivals.
New Chelsea manager Mourinho risked the wrath of his Old Trafford counterpart David Moyes this week by telling his first press gathering on his return to Stamford Bridge that Rooney should ask himself what it is that makes him happy.
United officials are known to be amused rather than irritated by Mourinho’s blatant courting of the England striker and will not register any dissatisfaction with the FA or indeed with Chelsea.
Nevertheless, any official interest from the London club in the 27-year-old will be met with a polite ‘no’ from Moyes and new United chief executive Ed Woodward.
United have long since had a simple policy in place that stops them selling top players to rivals in England. If players insist on leaving – as David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo did – then they will only be sold to the continent.
One player – defender Mikel Silvestre – was sold to Arsenal by previous United manager Sir Alex Ferguson in 2008 but the former France defender was way down the pecking order at that time.
More significantly, Ferguson fought tooth and nail to stop Argentina left back Gabriel Heinze joining Liverpool a year before that. The South American was eventually shipped out of Old Trafford to Real Madrid.
Rooney is due back at United for pre-season training on July 3 and there are currently no indications that he will not turn up. He is also expected to join his team-mates on their pre-season tour of Australia and Asia on July 10.
Sportsmail revealed at the end of last season that the former Everton star had asked Ferguson if he could leave United but it is also known that the centre forward’s sense of disillusion was with the former manager – who had stopped picking him for all his team’s big games – rather than the club itself.
Moyes and Rooney are due to meet for discussions about the way forward before pre-season officially gets underway.
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