Why Wayne Rooney should return to Everton rather than seek China's riches

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It’s testament to a faintly discernible thaw in Sir Alex Ferguson’s feelings for Wayne Rooney that he has been willing to offer comments about the player becoming Manchester United’s all-time top goal-scorer, and buried in his analysis for the latest edition of the club’s magazine is a reason why China and this player are not a good fit.

Rooney, Ferguson says, has not been able to adapt his game in the same way as Ryan Giggs once did, because “Ryan was built like that. Wayne’s got a different physique – he’s stocky; well made. Players age in different ways.”

The observation is relevant to the latest talk of Rooney clearing off to play in Asia because behind the riches of China lurks the prospect of him being asked to throw himself around a football field in that country’s oppressive and deeply uncomfortable climate.

He and China just don’t seem to fit and not only because of the sweat box the place can be. Rooney no more possesses a wanderlust than Steven Gerrard ever did.

It’s equally difficult to foresee his wife and three young children accompanying him out of their Prestbury sanctuary in the family’s Audi Q7 for a life on the other side of the world, so the notion of Rooney playing in the Chinese Super League next year looks far-fetched - let alone the idea that he might actually put pen to paper and leave before its transfer window closes, next Tuesday.

Gerrard left his wife and children behind on Merseyside and the new California life he described, having arrived at LA Galaxy, sounded nothing less than lonely at times. We’ve seen something equally solitary for Andre Villas Boas at Shanghai.

Jose Mourinho fuelled the notion of Rooney in China when, having been asked about it on Tuesday evening, he told us we would have to put our questions to the man in question. The chill indifference in Mourinho’s talk in Saint-Etienne was a far cry from the way he tilted a skirt at the player when trying to entice him to Chelsea three and a half years ago, though this is the manager’s way.

He’s said: “ask Rooney about China” once before, in the minutes after the 31-year-old broke that goal-scoring record, at Stoke. The Portuguese enjoys propagating the idea that he needs no-one, which is not the same as purposefully pushing the man to the door. Yet there was still surprise – and frustration - among Rooney’s representatives on Wednesday that Mourinho has given rise to yet more conjecture, by handling the issue in this way at his press conference.

The game is so full of confection and propaganda that the truth is hard to reach, but Rooney does not want to leave, has not asked to leave and seems to feel genuine goodwill towards and from the club he has served for 13 years. United’s executive vice chairman Ed Woodward has certainly contributed to that. You only have to discuss Rooney with Woodward to find a personal sense of attachment and affection.

Yet an Old Trafford future for him beyond this summer still looks unlikely, even though Sunday’s EFL Cup Final will almost certainly see Rooney back in a United shirt on the Wembley bench, it is understood.

Rooney said last month that he would not countenance another Premier League club, though Everton, who have offered a regular escape route for the discarded of Old Trafford in recent years, would offer some prospect of a part in one last England World Cup. Rooney is still England’s captain and has not given up hope of that. Move to China and such an ambition would be dust. There has been informal contact between his representatives and two Chinese clubs but it has not extended to any kind of meaningful discussion.

The Gerrard route west seems far more likely. The US language and the lifestyle offer something Asia’s lands do not, even though the riches are less. Money still motivates him but these factors do, too. The MLS would welcome Rooney with open arms. Its loss of Gerrard and Frank Lampard has left a space it badly needs filling, making Chelsea’s John Terry a coveted figure, too.

But a conversation with one franchise owner only last week revealed that the league, with its long-haul away games and range of climates, offers no home comforts for Rooney. “He wouldn’t find it easy,” the source said.

With the MLS season not starting until March, there is also the problem of how Rooney would maintain the prospect of featuring for Gareth Southgate in Russia. Woodward may well be open to finding a way to keep the player until Christmas, at least. Rooney has ridden football's carousel so thrillingly for so long but it has slowed with an abruptness that Giggs never knew. The consequences are proving to be brutal.