David Moyes has revealed that Sir Alex Ferguson phoned him twice in the summer of 2004 as Manchester United pressed to sign Rooney, a pursuit that ended with one of the club's defining transfers. The former Everton manager said Ferguson first asked to meet at the Haydock Thistle Hotel and then came back again a few weeks later, when the deal had moved on.
It is a story being revisited now because Moyes laid out the details on The Wayne Rooney Show, giving a fresh account of how United won the race for a player who was already drawing interest from across the country. Rooney had broken into Everton's starting XI in the 2002/03 campaign, scoring eight goals in 37 games, and followed that with nine goals and four assists in 40 appearances the next season before the move accelerated.
Moyes said Ferguson did not waste words when they met the first time. He recalled the United manager saying, “I want Rooney,” and said he replied that there was “no chance” of selling him. Ferguson asked only that Rooney not be allowed to join Chelsea or anyone else, then left it there.
Three or four weeks later, Moyes said, the phone rang again. Ferguson wanted the same meeting at the same place because he “wanted Wayne and things had moved on,” a reminder that the Old Trafford push was not a one-off call but a repeated attempt to force the transfer through.
Rooney has said Ferguson initially wanted to wait another year, but that plan changed after Euro 2004. Rooney scored four goals in four games at the tournament before breaking his foot against Portugal in the quarter-finals, and England lost on penalties. He said the performances made the move feel inevitable that summer, with United moving faster once his form in Portugal made him impossible to ignore.
That timing mattered. Rooney went on to spend 13 seasons at Old Trafford, scoring 253 goals and making 143 assists, becoming United's record goalscorer and winning 16 trophies, including five Premier League titles and one Champions League. Moyes's account adds a sharper picture of how the transfer happened: Ferguson was ready to wait, then decided not to after Euro 2004 gave him a reason to act before another year could pass.
