Okay, a quick show of hands, who thought Wayne Rooney would be this good as a manager? Didn’t think so. When he took the managerial job at Derby Country, he was a complete unknown, yet he has already enhanced his CV more than he could have possibly envisaged.
This week, it emerged that he had rejected an interview approach from his boyhood club Everton, who are on the hunt for a new manager after dismissing Rafa Benitez.
“Everton approached my agent and asked me to interview for the vacant job, which I turned down,” he said in his pre-match press conference.
"I believe that I will be a Premier League manager and I believe I'm ready for that 100 percent, and if that is with Everton one day in the future that'd be absolutely great. But I've got a job here to do at Derby County which is an important job to me."
His loyalty to Derby is worthy of praise, especially in their current climate, but their financial uncertainty also means it is the perfect first job for Rooney. He could have walked at any time, but his dedication to the fight will serve him well in the future, and make him a better proposition for any Premier League club.
The club were handed a 21 point deduction at the start of the season and had no players of note. Rooney had an impossible task having already kept them up on the final day last term, but what he has built over six months at Pride Park has given the Rams a chance of survival on the pitch. Ravel Morrison, Curtis Davies and Sam Baldock came through the door on free transfers, while Phil Jagielka and Richard Stearman helped make up a three-man central defence with a combined age of 108.
Such is the Rams financial situation, Jags was only given a six-month contract and subsequently joined Stoke this month after the EFL refused to allow Derby to re-sign him, given the lack of finances available to them. At every turn, Rooney has had his hands tied behind his back. Yet, like Harry Houdini himself, he is conducting a great escape that is almost incomparable to anything that has been achieved in Football League history.
From -21, Rooney’s side have plugged away, winning matches and pulling back the deficit against teams with multi-million pound budgets. They now sit on 14 points, and remarkably, aren’t even bottom of the Championship anymore - after leapfrogging a truly woeful Barnsley side with two wins to their name. The Rams have only lost eight matches out of 27 this term, and are now just seven points from safety, with just under half the season remaining.
Survival, if they can manage it off the pitch, is now a real possibility on the pitch and Rooney has made this dream a reality over the course of the most difficult season you can possibly imagine. If he doesn’t manage it and Derby fall short, or even worse go out of business, he will still be heralded as the man who gave them a fighting chance against all the odds. There is no risk to him managing at Derby County now, knowing that his reputation as a manager has been enhanced.
He may look to and learn from one of his Derby County predecessors. Frank Lampard did a decent job with the Rams in different circumstances, leading them to the play-off final, but then moved on after just one season to take charge of Chelsea - the club where he was a legendary player. However, Lampard is now still on the hunt for a job having been sacked by Chelsea over a year ago and is linked with Everton himself, yet perhaps he would have become a better manager had he stuck it out at Derby.
Rooney knows he is in no rush. He has time on his side and is still in the fledgling years of what could be a long and successful career in the dugout. Derby for now provides a no-lose situation to him, and he will manage in the Premier League if he continues his upwards trajectory, but he shouldn’t be in a rush to make the jump.
For now, he is on the verge of achieving something seriously special at Pride Park.
