Rooney not jealous of big spenders

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Wayne Rooney is not interested in casting envious glances at Real Madrid or Manchester City with the England forward confident Manchester United already have the quality at their disposal to land the major prizes.

The entire football world has been staggered at the enormous amounts of money shelled out by the men controlling the purse strings at the Bernabeu and Eastlands.

It seems like every few days another expensive purchase is being agreed, with Real smashing the world transfer record twice in a single week to land Kaka and then Cristiano Ronaldo.

City have profited at United's expense too by acquiring Carlos Tevez, while Matthew Upson is said to be top of the list of alternatives should Joleon Lescott's capture from Everton prove elusive.

Rooney is interested to see how it works out for the big-spending pair. But he is not jealous, or worried about what it means for United.

"There is no element of jealousy at the money City and Real Madrid have been spending," he said. "If our manager felt he needed to spend he would.

"But I don't believe we need too many changes. We have won the league for the last three seasons and reached the Champions League final twice in a row, so why would we need five or six players? I think the manager has probably got it right."

Sir Alex Ferguson would almost certainly have bought another experienced striker if the summer prices had not been so prohibitive.

An offer was made to Lyon for Karim Benzema, only for Ferguson to pull out when the price went over £30million, leaving the French international to join the Real Madrid throng.

There is interest in Atletico Madrid's young Argentina forward Sergei Aguero, only for United to be faced with a £50million fee which they are not willing to pay.

So, for all the promise of Federico Macheda, the Red Devils do appear to be a striker short which, after losing a player who has contributed an average goal tally in excess of 30 a year for the last three seasons, raises inevitable questions, which Rooney is content will be answered.

"Cristiano is the best player in the world," he said. "If you lose him of course there are going to be questions asked. But we have brought Michael Owen and Antonio Valencia in and they have settled in fairly quickly so it is on us to build on that.

"We might need to play a little bit of a different style to try and keep winning games."

Sourced from: The Belfast Telegraph