Did Wayne Rooney retire and not tell anyone? An investigation

Manchester United captain Wayne Rooney has regularly seemed nonexistent this season. He was a ghost in last weekend’s Manchester derby and again in Man United’s Capital One Cup loss to Middlesbrough, in which he was even credited with a missed a penalty. Given this, there exists a very real possibility that he has already retired from the game, having recently turned 30, and simply didn’t inform anyone of his departure, leaving Man United to continue selecting him without him actually showing up.

So let’s examine the evidence…

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Letters from Bojan: A glimpse of darkness

The earnest question of whether Lionel Messi could do it on a cold, wet night in Stoke has persisted as a cliched joke for a few years now. So when Barcelona surprisingly sold Bojan, a 24-year-old once hyped as the next Messi, to Stoke City, the only explanation was that Messi personally asked him to go there on an expedition to see if the conditions in this mythical place are as challenging as the fables suggest. This is Bojan’s seventh letter back to his friend.

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Arsenal’s substitutes for injured players are also getting injured now

It was all going so well for Arsenal. After losing their first two Champions League matches, they bounced back to claim four consecutive victories, including decisive wins against Manchester United and Bayern Munich. This proved enough to restart talk of Arsenal winning the Premier League, but then came their Capital One Cup round of 16 match against second-division Sheffield Wednesday.

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Man United give Wayne Rooney a testimonial and a nudge towards retirement

Manchester United have heeded the calls of supporters and granted Wayne Rooney a testimonial, which has been scheduled for August 3 of next year. The club award testimonials to players who have served for at least a decade, so Rooney’s 11 years puts him in that category, but they usually come before a player leaves the club or retires. Given Rooney’s much discussed poor form of late, that makes the timing of this announcement a bit interesting.

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