Moyes Hails Rooney Deal

David Moyes tells MUTV he is delighted that Wayne Rooney has signed a four-year contract extension at United...

How pleased are you to have secured Wayne on a long-term deal?
I’m delighted. He’s a world-class player and in my eyes he was never leaving. He was always staying. I want to bring more Wayne Rooneys to Manchester United and have lots of quality footballers here. We certainly didn’t want to lose Wayne.

What do you think he can achieve? He has the ability to break records at this club, doesn’t he?
He has and that is the type of goal we have now given him [with the new deal]. Everyone knows how highly we all regard Sir Bobby here and the likes of George Best and all the greats connected to this football club and Wayne is already a great. But now he has a chance to really prove himself to be one of the legends and to go for Sir Bobby's goals tally.

You’ve talked about his attitude being fantastic from day one, but do you see that aggression and hunger back in his game now?
It was one of the things I thought may have been missing a little bit when I came in. I thought ‘Come on Wayne, go back to the old Wayne Rooney’… rugged, hungry and really committed and with an edge in his play. He had that and I think when you try to take that out of someone it doesn’t work. I think Wayne needs it. He’s been great from day one. There were a lot of days the fans had to be put through talk of ‘Rooney will be leaving’ but not for a minute was it ever right.

How important is Wayne in your future plans for United?
He’s massive for what we want to do. We’ve got Wayne [signed up] and Juan Mata in… we’re having to build again and start again. It’s really important we keep players who we think can do us a job over the coming years and Wayne can certainly do that. He’s maturing as well. I see him now as an all-round team player. You look at the effort and work he is putting in, not just for himself but for the team and I think that’s why the supporters really relate to him. They gave him a great reception at Swansea when he was on the bench in the first game of the season and when he came back into the team my feeling was they saw an energised Wayne Rooney, someone who was committed and someone who was going to try to prove himself if he had to do so.

We’ve seen you sign Juan Mata and now get Wayne signed up – does this send out a bit of a message to the rest of the league?
I don’t really care if it sends out a message to the league, but the message is to all the Manchester United supporters - this is what we’re going to be doing and it will get better. I’m determined to make sure it gets better. I’ve got great support from the owners and from the board, and I can only say it won’t be the last [thing we do], that’s for sure.