All's Well That Ends Well?

What a surprise. The British media have been utterly hysterical about spud-faced nipper Wayne Rooney's supposed departure from the Manchester United team. Indeed, my Man U-supporting chum Emma came out with an appalling stream of invective aimed at out-of-form whore-buying Rooney yesterday.

Now it turns out that Rooney's petulance and the manager's heart-broken press conference were all just performances designed to extract the maximum cash from the heavily-indebted corporation that masquerades as a football club.

Wayne Rooney has made a shock u-turn and agreed a new five-year contract at Manchester United just days after announcing his intention to leave.

Congratulations to both sides: they realised that the British media are so desperate for material to fill the acres/hours of space that they could be played like a finely-tuned organ. As an example of how to negotiate in public, both sides played a blinder, though I'd give the nod to Rooney as the winner on points for demonstrating his importance to the team and making Alex Ferguson look like a broken old man. Never before has a player managed to beat him in the mind games: Ferguson usually tosses them aside without a backward glance.

I look forward to Emma's claim of amnesia…