Saturday 29 October 2016 09:54, UK
Jose Mourinho has reiterated that Wayne Rooney is "going nowhere", despite continuing speculation about the Manchester United captain's future.
Rooney has found himself on the bench for both club and country this season and reports this week suggested Mourinho had told Rooney he needed to move if he wanted regular first-team football.
However, the United manager has dismissed those reports, saying they are "not true at all".
Instead, Mourinho has underlined his desire to keep Rooney at Old Trafford for the foreseeable future, and insisted that the 31-year-old is happy to stay.
"With [his age being] 31, I know he can [play on]," said Mourinho. "I know he can, I know he's a top player, I know he can play at the top level.
"I cannot make this kind of mental exercise of what is going to happen at 32, 33, 34 or 35. I can't say that.
"What I can say is that he's a very good player, he's a very important player for us and he's going nowhere. We like him, he likes us.
"He is not happy because in the last matches he was on the bench, but I think he's even unhappier when he's not on the bench because he's been injured and has to stay in the stands. There is no problems at all."
Mourinho expressed his frustration at recent stories in the media about that matter and others, before growing frustrated as questions continued about Rooney.
"He's my captain," Mourinho added. "He is the team captain. He behaves like that.
"In all my career, I had just a couple of players that didn't want to play and sometimes they want to hide when things got hotter.
"Apart from that, every player wants to play and I don't know players that are happy when they don't play. They are always unhappy when they don't play."
Rooney is back in contention for Saturday's Premier League match with Burnley after recovering from injury, with the scrutiny sure to continue at a time the player himself admits is a "difficult period".
"I think he is a human being like everybody else," Mourinho said. "He has family, like everybody else. He has kids, the oldest one in an age where he can read, he can feel, he can get that, so if he is affected by that it's just the human nature.
"The human nature that your industry doesn't think about, but I think he's a big boy, he's a big character and he copes with the situation."
