OPINION
If Liverpool needed any more motivation in their Premier League title hunt, other than ending a 29 year drought, Wayne Rooney provided them with it on Thursday.
The ex England international, a former Everton and Manchester United player no less, is likely fuming as the Reds go head to head with Manchester City for English football’s top prize.
The DC United star confirmed as much recently: “It’s a great reason to be out the country when those two are going head to head for the title,” he told talkSPORT.
“I hope Man City get over the line before Liverpool. I couldn’t bear to see them win it, it would be a nightmare for any Evertonian. I remember in 2005 they won the Champions League and they’re still talking about it now so it would be another 10 or 15 years of that!,” he finished.
Whether Rooney realises it or not, he may have just fired up a rocket up the Liverpool players’ backsides. There won’t be a single man in a red shirt who wouldn’t love to stick it to a former Everton and United player by taking home the club’s first league title in almost 30 years. That would be sweet indeed.
Again, this is the worst possible scenario for the 33-year-old, but by picking City over Liverpool he may have just given the latter the edge they need in this season’s title race.
Marginal gains are the difference in elite sport, as is the mental game, and Rooney may have inadvertently given Jurgen Klopp’s side the mental edge over Pep Guardiola’s champions.
We’ll have to wait and see, of course, Rooney’s words could simply end up being water off a duck’s back. But with the Reds players firmly entering the crunch stage of the campaign, they’ll see the Evertonian’s words as the perfect thing to keep them going right until the end.
