Rooney hits out at Man City over ‘strange’ transfer decision after Real Madrid defeat
Wayne Rooney thinks Man City made a bad decision to loan Kyle Walker out to AC Milan and should have kept the right-back against his will.
The Citizens are having a poor season by their recent high standards with Pep Guardiola’s side winning the last four Premier League titles in a row.
But it looks almost impossible for Man City to win the title this season with leaders Liverpool now 15 points ahead with a game in hand on the fifth-placed Citizens.
And their 3-2 defeat at home to Real Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League play-off tie means they have a mountain to climb away at the Bernabeu next week.
One player who could be helping out Man City now is Walker but the Citizens chose to allow the former Sheffield United defender to move to Serie A giants AC Milan, who are facing Feyernoord in their Champions League play-off match on Wednesday.
And Rooney doesn’t think Man City should have let Walker move in January as it has left them short on the right-hand side of their defence.
Rooney told Amazon Prime: “I think you see the importance of Kyle Walker over the last seven or eight years for Manchester City.
“It’s so strange to see Kyle Walker go out on loan to AC Milan.
“Akanji’s obviously not a right-back, Rico Lewis is a young player playing in different positions, at this point in the season where Manchester City are struggling, Kyle Walker is the captain of the football club, to allow him to go on loan, for me, is really odd.”
When asked if Man City should have kept Walker against his will, Rooney replied: “Yeah… the player’s under contract and as the captain… there comes a time when players leave the football club.
“I think at this moment in time and Man City going through this blip they’re going through and Kyle Walker being the captain of the club and the importance of him over the last few years, I think an agreement to say, ‘let’s wait until the summer, help us out’, maybe the league is too far for them to reach now but they’ve still got the Champions League, help them get through the season.
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“I had it with Mourinho [at Manchester United] when I wasn’t playing with Jose Mourinho. I had the same conversation in January and he said to me, ‘stay until the end of the season, I need you to help us in the Europa League’.
“It was hard for me to take but I respected him for that and we shook hands and I left at the end of the season. I think that would have been the more sensible move for Kyle.”
But ex-Man City defender Gael Clichy reckons Walker’s departure in the winter window shows how “ruthless” the Citizens have become as a club.
Clichy said: “City is City, my view on it is that on and off the pitch they’ve been a ruthless club.
“Pep, if you don’t train well you don’t play, if you don’t perform well you don’t play, which is ruthless.
“The club, in a way, since Pep arrived, did the same. They were able to tell Joe Hart, a legend of the club, to move on. Vincent Kompany, David Silva, Kun Aguero… and still bringing young players through.
“What we saw with Kyle Walker a few months ago he was perhaps a few days away from signing for Bayern Munich. The club kept him, you can see now the position of letting this player, your captain, who brings you perhaps something no other defender in the team is giving you, of course you have moments where it’s right to sell the players, but right now tonight, and those few games we’ve seen altogether… why?”
