Jose Mourinho's insistence that Wayne Rooney is not a midfielder impacts his long-term future at Manchester United, writes Adam Bate.
"Sometimes you have to make choices in your career and at the minute it's probably better for me to play deeper. Next season with Manchester United, that's where I see myself playing." - Wayne Rooney, May 2016
The conclusion was understandable in the wake of his man-of-the-match performance in Manchester United's 3-1 win over Bournemouth in the final game of the season. Rooney had scored one and assisted another, a lofted pass over the top to set up Ashley Young.
It was enough to have him envisioning a future stroking the ball around midfield, with former United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel even insisting that the 30-year-old was capable of fulfilling the "same role" that had been played with such precision by Paul Scholes.
"I can play that position," said Rooney himself in April. "I have played and watched Paul Scholes play that role for years and I always knew that one day that is where I would play, so I have tried to learn and watch what he did."
Now those efforts appear to have been in vain. The dream taken away, with a swipe at Rooney's trademark raking passes for good measure. "You can tell me his pass is amazing but my pass is amazing too without pressure," said Mourinho.
He added: "Maybe he's not a striker any more. Maybe he is not a No 9 anymore but he will never, with me, be a No.6. He will never be 50 metres from the goal. For me he will be a No 9 or a No 10 or a nine-and-a-half, but with me he will never be a No 6 or even a No 8."
Never. It's not a word that leaves Mourinho with much room for manoeuvre. But it's the room for manoeuvre that Rooney has lost that's the problem now. After years of switching positions to find a role for both club and country, the rules appear to be changing.
"I am a manager that likes specialists, not multi-functional players," Mourinho explained at Tuesday's press conference. But what is Rooney's speciality? His new manager will perhaps seek to style his comments as a show of faith in his skipper's forward abilities.
"In football there are many jobs," he said. "The one that is more difficult to find is the one who puts the ball in the net. Players change their characteristics with age, so it's normal that they change a little bit. But the natural appetite to put the ball in the net never changes."
Rooney is England's record goalscorer and is only four shy of Sir Bobby Charlton's all-time scoring record for Manchester United. It's Rooney the goalscorer who Mourinho admitted to wanting to sign for Real Madrid in 2010 and later take to Chelsea in 2013.
But it's the passage of time rather than Mourinho's faith in Rooney that's likely to be an issue. The Portuguese described the player as "fast and direct" in 2013, and yet it's a lack of pace that could undermine any combination play with new signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Things change.
Just ask Samuel Eto'o. Mourinho traded Ibrahimovic for Eto'o in 2009 and promptly won the Champions League with the Cameroon forward. But that didn't stop him claiming he had "no striker" when working with the 32-year-old version at Chelsea several years later.
Will Mourinho reach a similar conclusion about an ageing Rooney? With a lucrative contract at the club until the summer of 2019, there's plenty of time for things to play out. But it's still rather less time than Rooney himself might have once imagined.
Scholes was still strolling around in United's midfield at the age of 38. But with that avenue now ruled out, Mourinho has suddenly put a rather different time frame on Rooney's Manchester United career. One wonders where he sees his future now.