Football: Man United fans rate Ronaldo over Rooney

Wayne Rooney Rooney celebrates his 30th birthday this weekend. Photo / AP

It is a strange quirk of Wayne Rooney's relationship with Manchester United's supporters that, if you were to conduct a straw poll on the Stretford End to gauge whether he or Cristiano Ronaldo was held in greater esteem, the current United captain would come a distant second to the player who upped sticks and left for Real Madrid.

It would be Viva Ronaldo all the way, with rolled eyes and shrugs whenever Rooney becomes the topic of discussion.

There is a pantheon of greats at Old Trafford and Rooney, because of his achievements, goals and longevity, deservedly claimed his place in it long before celebrating his 30th birthday this weekend. But if there were to be a top 10 of players in the hearts of United supporters, Rooney would be unlikely to be in it and he can probably thank a dalliance with Manchester City, five years ago this week, for his absence from that exclusive group.

Eric Cantona, Roy Keane, George Best, Bryan Robson, Denis Law, Bobby Charlton, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville, along with Ronaldo, would probably all beat Rooney to a place among the United elite, but it is the Ronaldo fixation which would perhaps most warrant Rooney to raise an eyebrow.

Rooney, after all, stayed at United when he could have pushed through two aborted attempts to leave, to City in 2010 and Chelsea 2013, but Ronaldo left, at the end of a two-year battle to exit Old Trafford for Real, in 2009. Ronaldo has since played the PR game almost as well as he has performed on the pitch for Real, with regular comments about his debt to Sir Alex Ferguson and United, not to mention his teasing refusal to rule out a return to the club - shortly before signing a lucrative five-year contract at the Bernabeu two years ago.

Rooney has never quite played to win hearts and minds in the same way and it may explain why he is not loved by the United fans.

A boyhood Evertonian, a Scouser, who has never made a secret of his devotion to the blue half of Merseyside - in a recent BBC documentary, he admitted the importance of his two sons being born in Liverpool - Rooney has conspicuously stopped short of saying what supporters always like to hear.

For Rooney, his career at United has been purely business.

He has benefited hugely from that relationship, but so has the club, which has won titles and trophies on the back of his goals, tenacity and, at times, sheer presence in Ferguson's team.

Both United and Rooney have been good for each other, so it has been a successful piece of business.

But Everton has always been the team closest to his heart, so when he came close to leaving United for City five years ago, in what was viewed as an act of treachery by many Old Trafford supporters, it was merely another example of Rooney putting football as a business first.

Neither Rooney nor City has ever confirmed a deal was on the table, but one figure deeply involved in the blue machinations has since claimed the player was a 'fag paper' away from crossing town in 2010-11.

The threat of United suffering the ultimate humiliation of losing its best player and talisman to their newly-powerful neighbours was enough to prompt one group of supporters, the self-styled 'Men in Black,' to visit Rooney's house four days into the saga to try discourage the player from being lured away.

The fact that Rooney performed an about-turn by signing a new 250,000-a-week ($560,000) contract with United has never been able to repair the damage caused.

Despite his current battle for form, Rooney has delivered during his time at United. He could end up surpassing Charlton as the club's greatest-ever goalscorer but this is not likely to earn him the love and affection at Old Trafford.