Mourinho courted Rooney closely throughout the summer of 2013 in the hope of persuading him to move to Chelsea but the Manchester United striker ultimately decided to stay put at Old Trafford and, the following February, signed a 5½ year contract worth £300,000 a week with the club.
The Portuguese coveted the England captain then and wanted him to spearhead Chelsea’s attack but will he feel the same way, three years after that unrequited approach, about a player who turns 31 in October and whose days as a central striker appear numbered as they prepare to be united in Manchester?
In reality, Rooney will probably have little to worry about. Mourinho likes natural leaders, and when he walks into that United dressing room for the first time and discovers that there is not a great number of them to call upon, it will not take him long to realise Rooney’s importance in much the same way as David Moyes and Louis van Gaal did.
The difference, of course, is that Mourinho will doubtless seek in the transfer market to sign players who can help to ease the leadership burden on the captain, not increase it, as Van Gaal, in particular, did with purchases of players whose characters seemed largely unsuited to the demands of playing for United.
It speaks volumes that it was the younger players brought up with a hardened United mentality (Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard among them) that were instrumental in giving the team greater conviction and, beyond that, a couple of confident young recruits (Anthony Martial and, at least before his injury, Luke Shaw) that had the attitude, as well as the skills, to succeed where more senior players wilted.
The bigger question with Rooney may centre over where Mourinho intends to play him. Van Gaal had made clear in recent weeks that he viewed Rooney’s future very much as a central midfielder and Mourinho would certainly get no complaints from the player if asked to continue in a role that he believes allows him to get into the game more.
Rashford’s ability to stretch defences with his speed, coupled with the pace and penetration that Martial offers cutting in from the left flank, have highlighted the importance of that extra sharpness in attack. Rooney’s habit of dropping deep often left United without a focal point while his reduced mobility up front was benefiting neither him nor his team-mates, particularly with few runners looking to break into space from midfield, and he has looked much more comfortable no longer playing with his back to goal.
Shaw, similarly, knows what it is like to be pursued by Mourinho only to resist his advances, although the England left-back could be forgiven for feeling a little sheepish after his incoming manager claimed signing the player for Chelsea two years ago would have “killed the stability in our dressing room”. Shaw, then 18, joined United from Southampton for £28 million on a contract reputedly worth about £130,000 a week, a sum Mourinho felt would only cause divisions at Chelsea.
“If we pay to a 19-year-old boy what we were being asked for, for Luke Shaw, we are dead,” he said at the time.
“Because when you pay that much to a 19-year-old kid – a good player, a fantastic player – but when you pay that amount of money, the next day the players knock on the club’s door and say, ‘How is it possible I play for this club 200 games and won this and that but a 19-year-old comes here and get more money than I get?”
Shaw will no doubt focus on the part that reads “fantastic player”, although if Zlatan Ibrahimovic ends up joining United as expected, the Sweden striker may be one of the first to relay to the defender, and Rooney, the merits of working under Mourinho.
“He turned me from a cat into a lion, dragged things out of me at Inter Milan that no one had done before,” Ibrahimovic said.
Rooney will rest easier if Mourinho manages to give his career a second wind.