Mike Phelan says Wayne Rooney has put himself "right out there"

Wayne Rooney (centre) is unhappy for being benched too often for his club’s key fixtures this season.

Manchester United‘s former assistant boss Mike Phelan believes Wayne Rooney has put himself ‘right out there’ with the club’s fans for trying to leave for the second time.

Rooney earlier wanted to leave Old Trafford in October 2010 after claiming that the club lacked ambition but eventually agreed to stay with a better pay deal.

Former manager Sir Alex Ferguson revealed that Rooney had already asked to leave the club a second time in May due to growing frustration of being substituted or dropped in key fixtures.

Phelan believes the Old Trafford faithful wouldn’t digest this news so easily.

He said in The Sun: “You can put the first one down to inexperience but the second one is putting yourself right out there.”

The fate of Rooney must be decided by the new boss David Moyes in coming days. The United striker has been linked with Chelsea, Barcelona and PSG in recent times.

Phelan added: “Wayne is at the greatest club you can be at. Why would you want to jeopardise that, unless you want a fresh challenge and you feel that challenge isn’t being met at Manchester United.

“Somewhere down the line there will be words said, there will be meetings. They’ll see if it’s still alive and worth going for or they’ll call time on it.”

Regarding the first time Rooney asked to leave, Phelan said: “Every player is entitled to express a desire to want to move on. Any player can do that at any time. In Wayne’s case, in the first instance, he took a lot of advice and got steered towards that call but the manager was terrific.

“He talked to him and asked why he would want to leave the club. The press conference Sir Alex gave was a bit of a tear-jerker and it was genuine.”

Source: Skysports