Rooney speaks!!

As reported here and here... The boy himself has backed up my narrative. Perhaps we could now give him some support. My friends at BBC News 24 say we can watch the video evidence and make our own minds up. Seems to me they're implying he's lying. What is this, class prejudice? "Paul Doyle" - another Guardian blogger, or maybe the same one as Rob Smyth, perhaps they should use "M Yass" (reference is to "Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room") - even describes him as "brutish". Looks like a boy who wants to play football to me. And one who, unlike Maradona, for example, has (so far) resisted the dark side of the force and not started falling over at the slightest touch all the time.

Well, Mr News 24, you look at the video and get some biomechanical experts in and see where Rooney has to put his foot to keep his balance and go after the ball. I've tried to mimic his position and weight distribution and he has to put his left foot back, behind the right. He can't push off his right foot without strain on that knee. He can't put it in front of him without crumpling further. No, he has to put his foot back and push off, straightening his body. And, remember, none of this was happening in slo-mo.

If McLaren wants to break from Sven (and he should), he should back Rooney too: come out and say refs need to give players the benefit of the doubt in these sorts of situations. There was no premeditated flying tackle to stop an attack or to injure someone, in fact no real motive at all. We're supposed to believe it was a "crime of passion" - retaliation, but to what, precisely? - when instead it seems Rooney had just won out in the tussle. His incentive was to get on with the game, or if the whistle had already gone (as it might have) to see which way the free-kick was going. How would the case stand up in a court of law?

And what's more FIFA have to take away the incentive for defenders to generate foul play all the time to prevent a dangerous attack: often they're the first to foul, but end up getting the decision as the tussling escalates, sometimes spectacularly so as in this case.

Come on Steve, show some leadership! Everyone else seems to be allowed a say, even Elizondo. Yeah, of course he wasn't influenced by the winker. If he doesn't believe Rooney, why should we believe his sel-serving account? Perhaps there he is thinking: "That's looks like it hurt, don't see that very often, must have been an accident". Then someone shouts: "Foul! Red card!" and he starts to think: "Really, could it have been deliberate?". Then he decides to get the red card out.

But of course the game shouldn't depend so much on the way refs interpret the laws. It'll destroy itself eventually. I'd pay to see Rooney (even if he takes my team apart), but I've stopped going to Premiership games for, to be fair, many reasons, but partly because what you end up remembering at the end of the day is the performance of the Man in Black.