Ever since Alex Ferguson made one of his last comments as Manchester United manager a confirmation that Wayne Rooney had handed in a transfer request, speculation has been rife on the England man making a move way from Old Trafford.

Rooney: Transfer Truth: 10%

We previously reported very low chances of Rooney making a move to Chelsea or Arsenal when we covered this story in more depth. On both occasions the connection between Rooney and these two clubs was made on the basis of taking comments drawn out by lead questions from reporters, and spinning them ferociously through the night to come up with a shameful tapestry that could, if viewed from the right angle, and having consumed the right amount of CIA approved suggestibility drugs, imply that Rooney could make a move to London.

The Flawed Logic

There is some logic that allowed this story to develop, the facts are that Rooney had a public falling out with David Moyes, that ended in the courts. There is also the fact that Rooney was dropped or benched on a number of high profile occasions towards the end of last season and having played second fiddle to RVP conclusions were drawn that he no longer fit in to Ferguson's United vision, and also, the big jewel in he crown of recent reports, Sir Alex's comments to the press prior to the Swansea match at the end of last season:

I don’t think Wayne was keen to play simply because he’s asked for a transfer.

What's wrong with this logic? well for a start it implies that Moyes first priority at United would be anything other than mending bridges with Rooney and managing their relationship positively, I mean after all Moyes is the manager, so heaven forbid he actually tried to manage one of his players!

The other major problem is that Rooney was dropped, and shifted around the park under Alex Ferguson, who is no longer the manager, so implying that Rooney has some sort of hereditary hatred of anyone with the title of United manager is just obscene, and likely to be far from the current truth even if Rooney had issues with Moyes in the past, it is also largely ignored that it was in fact David Moyes who gave him his first start as a teenager and effectively managed him in a way that allowed him to emerge as a super star.

The final flawed logic is the Ferguson comment, now this is hard to dispute, it was as clear as you could want it to be, but we have since heard many reports that Rooney did in fact not hand in a transfer request and that his reasons for missing the some games at the end of the season were that his wife was about to give birth to their child.

Rooney Move Debunked

Even if reading between the lines would have been enough for most of us to figure out that there was little beyond speculation to suggest Rooney might move, the Rooney move has now come even closer to being debunked. Even though multiple sources are still clinging on to stories suggesting Chelsea is his preferred destination others have tentatively emerged over the past few hours which back up our previous report that Rooney never handed in a transfer request and is in fact demanding an apology from Manchester United over the comment, which he feels has seen him vilified by sections of United supporters.

Our Turth-o-meter

Rooney can be highly unpredictable at times, it's part of what makes him so exciting to watch on and off the pitch, so it's difficult to write off any notion of him leaving United. With a lack of a clear quote from the club or the player the doubts will linger and stories will be spun off the back of comments made by managers falling in to reporter booby traps but as it stands we can't find anything that would suggest strongly that he is on the move. If anything there seems to growing belief that Rooney never actually handed in the transfer request which is the corner stone of a majority of the transfer speculation surrounding him in the papers.

A a result we're keeping our truth rating on this transfer at a fictional 10%, it would be even lower were it not for the lack of any comment from United recently or the fact that Rooney does have form for handing in transfer requests to United managers. We're reducing the chances of a move to Chelsea from 15% to 10% on the basis that talks with Moyes will end positively and statements will be made shortly that Rooney will stay. In the unlikely event that he does move, there will likely be 4 or 5 realistic targets on the cards, PSG would be our clear favourites with Chelsea probably in 2nd place.

Likeliness of Signing: 10%

Fit at Club: 80%