Manchester United - Rooney is not going anywhere, insists Jose Mourinho

Manchester United - Rooney is not going anywhere, insists Jose Mourinho

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Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has rubbished rumours claiming Wayne Rooney's days at the Old Trafford are numbered. The Portuguese manager is convinced that the Englishman still has a lot to give as a player and that it is normal for him to be unhappy with his place on the bench.

Wayne Rooney has struggled to retain his place in the starting lineup since the arrival of Mourinho in the summer. The forward has recently been linked with a move back to his old club Everton, but Mourinho has squashed those rumours and insisted that the Englishman is not going anywhere.

“With [his age being] 31, I know he can [play on]. I know he can, I know he's a top player, I know he can play at the top level. I cannot make this kind of mental exercise of what is going to happen at 32, 33, 34 or 35. I can't say that.

"What I can say is that he's a very good player, he's a very important player for us and he's going nowhere. We like him, he likes us.

"He is not happy because in the last matches he was on the bench, but I think he's even unhappier when he's not on the bench because he's been injured and has to stay in the stands. There is no problems at all," Mourinho said, reported Sky Sports.

The former Chelsea boss claimed that Rooney still remains the leader of the team, and that it is only normal for a player to be disappointed to lose his place in the side.

"He's my captain. He is the team captain. He behaves like that.

"In all my career, I had just a couple of players that didn't want to play and sometimes they want to hide when things got hotter.

"Apart from that, every player wants to play and I don't know players that are happy when they don't play. They are always unhappy when they don't play," Mourinho added.

Rooney is back in contention after recovering from his injury ahead of United's next Premier League game against Burnley. He has recently admitted that it has been a difficult period for him on and off the field. Mourinho feels it is just human nature for someone to be affected by how the media had criticized him.

"I think he is a human being like everybody else. He has family, like everybody else. He has kids, the oldest one in an age where he can read, he can feel, he can get that, so if he is affected by that it's just the human nature.

"The human nature that your industry doesn't think about, but I think he's a big boy, he's a big character and he copes with the situation," he added.

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