Wayne Rooney named three clubs he almost left Man Utd for in 2010 including one which would've been 'perfect'

Wayne Rooney has revealed the three clubs he nearly joined after coming close to leaving Manchester United in 2010.

Rooney, 38, is widely considered to be one of United’s greatest-ever players. The former striker is the club’s all-time leading goal scorer with 253 goals for the club.

The Liverpool-born forward left United in 2017 with an impressive haul of 16 trophies in 13 years at the club - following his £30m transfer from his boyhood club Everton in 2004.

However, things could have turned out very differently. In 2010, Rooney handed in a transfer request confirming his desire to move on from United after asking for the “continued ability of the club to attract the top players in the world”, according to The Guardian.

The manager at the time, Sir Alex Ferguson, was not very pleased with Rooney’s remarks and accused him of showing ‘no respect’ for the football club.

However, the situation culminated in Rooney eventually signing a long-term contract at the Red Devils, but he was not short of potential offers from other clubs.

“In my head, at the time, in that two-day period, I was ready to go and play in Spain,” Rooney told the United podcast in 2020.

“Ideally, I would have liked to have gone to Barcelona, but it was looking more likely to be Real Madrid than Barcelona. Chelsea were always there as well.

“I remember sitting down for one day and thinking ‘imagine playing in that Barcelona team – Messi, Xavi, [Andres] Iniesta and [Sergio] Busquets’. And at that time, Messi wasn’t playing the way he plays now, as a No 9 for instance. He was out wide.

Wayne Rooney left Manchester United in 2017 (Credit:Getty)

“I was thinking I could have slotted in perfectly. I could have come to the ball as well and have players running in behind. I remember thinking about that.”

The former forward admitted that Manchester City were rumoured to also be in the running to sign him, but they had already spent big money on the likes of David Silva and Yaya Toure in the summer transfer window - so moving to the blue side of Manchester was never a realistic prospect.

“There was Real Madrid, Barcelona, and the Man City thing keeps cropping up, but there was never the option for me to go there,” Rooney added.

“Although there were rumours on that as well, but the other three, really, were more realistic options.”