WAYNE Rooney has predicted Manchester United will MISS out on the top four – because they are still ‘picking up the pieces’ of the calamitous transfer policy at the end of the Sir Alex Ferguson era.
Rooney, United’s all-time top scorer, says Ralf Rangkick’s players have a duty to sort out their issues – even if that means doing so without the manager.
He told talkSPORT: “United are not going to win the league in the next two or three years.
“Let’s be honest, they’re a long way off it. City and Liverpool are at another level.
“There hasn’t been that stability at the club. There’s a decision to make at the end of the season and it has to be the right one.
“It’s going to be difficult for them to get into the top four now. You can see the confidence is low and the other issues around the club.
“The performances have not been great. They have got to improve and the players need to show their character, that they are together and fighting for the club.
“There have been games I’ve watched where I’ve questioned that and if it carries on the way it’s going, I don’t think they will make the top four.
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“There needs to be a serious conversation, without the coaches and staff there.
“They have to come together, whether they are friends or don’t like each other, but come together for the club.”
Rooney believes the seeds of the current disarray were sown more than a decade ago, with the rot starting when the club let Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo both leave.
And in the new Amazon documentary “Rooney”, he recalled: “We sold Tevez and then we sold Ronaldo.
“I was the one player left of high-profile. I went into Alex Ferguson’s office and said to him: ‘What’s the plan here? We’ve brought two young English players who are unproven’.
“I remember Alex Ferguson’s response was ‘get out of my office’.”
Rooney added: “When you look five years down the line from that meeting, Alex Ferguson knew where the club was going and he got out of there as quick as he could.
“They are still picking up the pieces now.”
Rooney then shocked United – and Fergie – by attempting to engineer a move to Manchester City.
He added: “They offered me a contract of £200,000 a week so it would have been quite easy for me to say ‘five years and £200k a week – let me sign it now’.
“It would have been quite easy for me to do that.
“But I wanted success on the pitch and that means more to me.
“I thought I’ll get the fans like me again and get them singing my name again.
“I would do anything for that club to win. I’d cheat for them to win.
“We won league title after league title after league title. We got to three Champions League finals in four years.
“In terms of what we achieved it was probably the most successful four or five years in Premier League history but it gets lost because Manchester United in 1999 won the Treble.”
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