Wayne Rooney leaves Stick To Football pundits stunned as he reveals eye-watering details of biggest Man Utd contract

While Rooney has not had much success in management, following his dismissals at Birmingham City and Plymouth Argyle, few can argue about what he achieved as a player. He won five Premier League titles and a Champions League, along with a host of other silverware. The 40-year-old picked up a hatful of individual accolades, scored 53 goals in 120 games for England, and found the net on 313 occasions in 763 appearances. Across his career, greats of the game waxed lyrical about him.

For instance, former team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo said: "He was the kid of England, everyone loved him. He was so powerful, I was calling him ‘Pitbull.’ The power of Wayne Rooney is his mentality and strength, and he never stops. He’s a fantastic team player, and he scores. He’s a fantastic boy, and he helped me a lot when he came to join us in Manchester."

Ronaldo's greatest of all time rival, Lionel Messi, believed that what Rooney could do on a football pitch was "very special".

The Argentine admitted: "There has always been a great deal of respect between myself and Wayne Rooney. For me, he is the great English player of the generation. What he is capable of doing on the field is very special, and he is one of the few players that would improve any squad in Europe."

And Arsenal great Thierry Henry said the consistently high level Rooney produced in his career was "extraordinary".

He added: "To play well for six months or a season in football is nothing. To do so for over a decade like Rooney is extraordinary. I know what it takes, and it isn’t easy. Trust me, people talk about him outside of this country. In Spain and France, he is appreciated as a top, top player."

In an enlightening chat about how players brokered deals in their playing days, Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, Ian Wright, and Roy Keane were lost for words when Rooney talked about the biggest contract he signed at United. In 2014, when Rooney was 28 going on 29, the ex-Everton ace signed a five-year deal with reported wages of around £300,000. And on Stick to Football, Rooney said he got £17 million ($22m) a year after that bit of business. With the ex-footballers blown away by this figure, Neville quipped that he wished he had used an agent during his contract negotiations with the Red Devils. The right-back said he earned a basic salary of £1.75m that rose to £2.25m.

He added: "[Money] was never a focus for me. I never once worried about the money side of it. I just thought that if I can get to the end of my career at 35 or 36 at United then I know I'll be alright. When they offered me seven years on less money, it was better for me than signing for four years on higher money. I always thought in a more cautious way."

Carragher piped up that his biggest deal was around £3m and Keane said he earned around £5m at his peak. 

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Rooney retired from playing in the 2020/21 season with Championship side Derby County, with the veteran then taking up the role of Rams manager. Ergo, many football fans growing up now will not have seen him in his pomp. But the plaudits that came his way give some indication as to how good a player he was. 

Former England and United team-mate Rio Ferdinand once said: "I laid eyes on him when he was 16 or 17 years old, and I remember after an England game as well, I said to his mum and dad in the players’ lounge ‘make sure he signs for Manchester United'. They looked at me and laughed and thought, ‘we have already done that’. What a player. He did it all, he scored a ridiculous amount of goals, scored absolute bangers from anywhere on the pitch, great passer, aggressive, passion, desire, work rate."

Rooney's former manager, David Moyes, got to see him make the grade at the Toffees, and knew he had something very special on his hands.

"There was a day when we had him in training. He was only a young boy and we had to set up a small-sided game and Wayne chipped a goalkeeper from near the byline. It was a moment when we all looked at each other and said, ‘Did he really do that? Did that happen?’. We knew it before, but when we saw that happen we all thought ‘there is a real special talent here," he said.

For the time being, Rooney has put his managerial career on hold and is giving punditry a go once again. He has a podcast with the BBC and is a Match of the Day pundit, along with other gigs. But another foray in the dugout may be at the back of his mind, too.