Can he coach Manchester United? Wayne Rooney has received an advocacy from a legend and former teammate after his harsh sacking

Unfortunately, this has gone horribly wrong. Wayne Rooney was supposed to lead an ambitious Birmingham City back to the Premier League, instead he has taken them to places where they are struggling to stay in England’s second tier. So he was sacked. His former teammate, however, stood up for him.

Those were the days. Sir Alex Ferguson on the bench, aces like Wayne Rooney, Dimitar Berbatov and Carlos Tévez in attack. Back then, Manchester United were still enjoying the best era in the club’s history. Now, however, it’s almost a forgotten past, even though it wasn’t that long ago.

Ferguson has been coming to Old Trafford as a spectator for a while now, Berbatov and Tévez are almost unspoken of in the world of great European football, and then there’s Rooney. That’s been all over the British media in recent days in particular.

In October, he received an interesting offer. Just days after he parted ways with overseas outfit D.C. United, Birmingham City in England signed him up. The traditional Premier League club is looking to get back among the English elite.

When Rooney signed for the West Midlands club for three and a half years, the Blues were in sixth place in the Championship, England’s second highest league. So it seemed that the world football legend had everything in place to just build on a good start to the season and go for promotion.

The opposite became true. Birmingham played 15 games under the Manchester United icon, won only 2 times, accumulated 9 defeats. Rooney has come under fire from the media and the public. And on February 2, he was officially sacked.

What’s next? Rooney has been defended

So far, the only engagement where Wayne Rooney left a truly positive impression was the first one at Derby County. He didn’t exactly impress in D.C., and an initially ideal stint in Birmingham ended ingloriously.

However, the Everton product is still only 38 years old. He has his entire coaching career ahead of him. So there’s no need to despair. An interesting opportunity is sure to come. His former teammate and another football legend Dimitar Berbatov believes so.

“A tricky situation. Wayne took over the team in sixth place, now Birmingham is twentieth. It’s very disappointing, the stats speak for themselves. It’s hard to defend him. On the other hand, he hasn’t had enough time to prove himself. Results are the most important thing today, you need to have them,” the Bulgarian said in his column for Betfair.

“First and foremost, it is essential to get time to go towards your vision. But you can’t do that when you have bad results. It’s hard to get that time. But if Rooney had got it, maybe he would have turned the situation in his favour. It’s agreat pity,” Berbatov writes.

“I sympathise with Wayne. I know he wants to be a manager. Maybe one day he will be Manchester United manager. I still believe that. But his involvement with Birmingham shows to any footballer who wants to be a manager that even a big name may not save you,” the technical genius and elegiac concluded the topic.

So currently Rooney is without an engagement and has to wait for offers. He certainly shouldn’t wait too long with his name. Maybe he will show that he has great coaching potential in his next job.

Source: Betfair, Transfermarkt, Championship