Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney looks set to return to Everton over the weekend on a free transfer.<\/p>\n
BBC Sport understands there is “quiet optimism” that a deal is close and that Rooney, 31, wants to return to Goodison – 13 years after he left for United – despite interest from other clubs.<\/p>\n
United will waive a fee and may also fund part of Rooney’s \u00a313m wages.<\/p>\n
He is unlikely to be part of the United party who leave for their pre-season tour of the United States on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The deal is not connected to\u00a0United’s ongoing pursuit\u00a0of Everton forward Romelu Lukaku.<\/p>\n
Rooney signed a new four-and-a-half-year contract during the 2013-14 campaign, which included the option of a further season, but the Old Trafford club have no intention of triggering that clause.<\/p>\n
The future of the the former England captain, who started 15 Premier League games last season, has been the subject of speculation for several months.<\/p>\n
Asked in May whether he wanted to stay at Old Trafford, he said: “Of course. I’ve been at this club for 13 years, but I want to play football.”<\/p>\n
Rooney began his career at Goodison Park before joining United for \u00a327m in August 2004.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, United have appointed former Sunderland manager Ricky Sbragia as their new Under-23 manager.<\/p>\n
Sbragia, who left the Scottish FA last month, spent three years in charge of the reserves at United from 2002.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC Sport<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney looks set to return to Everton over the weekend on a free transfer. BBC Sport understands there is “quiet optimism” that a deal is close and that Rooney, 31, wants to return to Goodison – 13 years after he left for United – despite interest from other clubs. United will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[163,1055,1096,9046],"class_list":["post-334891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","tag-everton","tag-man-utd","tag-sports","tag-wayne-rooney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=334891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=334891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=334891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=334891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}