GM football fans. Route One here, we break down football news and stories faster than you can break a New Year’s resolution.

Today’s briefing is a ~4 min read:

1. Remembering Wayne Rooney’s golden Tweets 🐤

2. Around the world in 30 seconds: Argentina’s FA plan for Messi’s retirement 👕

3. The real cost of Jadon Sancho 🤑

Morning Brief 🗞️

WAYNE’S UNFORGETTABLE TWEETS 🐤

Manager sackings are like buses.

You wait ages for one, and then three come along at once. That’s the story of the season so far.

This week, it was Wayne Rooney who got the boot from Birmingham City.

So we felt it was the perfect time to rehash some of Wazza’s best moments… on Twitter.

But, first, let’s set the scene.

When Rooney joined Everton’s youth team at the age of nine, it took him only seven years before he made his professional debut for the club. At the same time, the Evertonian teen began to question the quality of his teammates. 

After a few training sessions with the first team, 16-year-old Wazza recalls thinking “these are crap”.

Two seasons later, Rooney transferred to Manchester United for £25.6 million in the 2004 summer transfer window. 

Rooney quickly proved himself as a generational talent at United with a hat-trick and assist in his debut win over Fenerbahçe in the UEFA Champions League. 

As Rooney established himself as one of the best players in the world, interest grew around the inner workings of such a talented enigma. 

Luckily, he used to let us know quite often… via Twitter.

Just like the time he asked his teammate Rio Ferdinand at 1:53 AM whether he’d want a lift to training. 

Or his touching tribute following the passing of Whitney Houston in 2021. 

And the time he kept his followers in the loop on his hair transplant.

How about the time that he confirmed his horse’s name to produce this classic?

One of our personal favourites… the time he produced cutting-edge reporting on Manchester United’s signing of Phil Jones.

But we can’t seem to understand what he was doing with this last Tweet… 

AROUND THE WORLD IN 30 SECS 🌍

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The Premier League starts its winter break after the hectic Christmas fixture schedule finished. No games will be played this weekend with the next gameweek starting on Saturday 13th January.

🇪🇸 Real Madrid remains top of the La Liga after a win against Mallorca last night. Jude Bellingham also remains the league’s top goal scorer with 13 goals.

🇦🇷 Argentina’s football association have announced they will be retiring the number 10 once Lionel Messi retires from the national team.

🇺🇸 The MLS welcomes Luis Suarez (LAFC), Hugo Lloris (LAFC) and Emil Forsberg (NY Red Bulls) to the league ahead of the regular season which starts on the 21st of February 2024.

🇩🇪 Bayern Munich remain second behind Xabi Alonso’s Bayern Leverkusen despite Harry Kane leading the Bundesliga’s goal scorer charts with 21 goals in 15 games.

THE REAL COST OF JADON SANCHO 💷 

Jadon Sancho is on the verge of a loan move back to Borussia Dortmund.

The young winger has been exiled from the Manchester United squad after a bust-up with Erik Ten Hag in September last year.

Following the bust-up Sancho has been:

• Forced to train alone.

• Made to dine with the academy players.

• Banned from all first-team facilities.

Ouch.

But to make light of what has been a dark situation we wanted to have a little fun…

We wanted to work out how much Sancho has actually cost the Red Devils.

In other words, what is the true cost to a club that signs a £73,000,000 flop?

Before any smart-ass lawyers or accountants in the audience (though we appreciate you being here with us today) give us telling off for our workings, we want to list a few ground rules. We are assuming that:

• Sancho will not make another appearance for United.

• Sancho’s wages will be paid by United whilst on loan at Dortmund.

• United will not receive a loan fee for Sancho.

• Sancho’s wages are £350,000 at United (as widely reported).

Our calculations cover four scenarios:

1. Sancho is released after his loan move ends.

2. He is sold for £10,000,000 after his loan move ends.

3. He is sold for £20,000,000 after his loan move ends.

4. He is sold for £30,000,000 after his loan move ends.

Here are the numbers and the four scenarios…

After using our abacus and doing some clever accounting calculations we found Mr Sancho was expensive.

And when we say expensive, we mean really expensive.

If he is released for no fee he could cost United up to:

• £93,548,250 in total or;

• £5,199,125 per goal or assist or;

• £1,141,271 per appearance or;

• £18,770 per minute

To put this into perspective, with that kinda cash, Ten Hag could’ve bought around 17,010 hair transplants in Turkey. Plus have change left over for a kebab on the way back to Old Trafford.

Gutted.

EXTRA-TIME ⏱️

Kai Rooney didn’t hold back on why his dad got the sack from Birmingham… apparently, the keeper needs to go on a diet and the centre-backs are just s**t.

Arbroath’s substitute goalkeeper scores a screamer after coming on as an outfield player. More teams will be tempted to play their keepers upfront after watching this clip.

Diego Maradona was once featured on the Italian Dancing with the Stars. Enjoy a clip of him learning the cha cha cha whilst taking a break to do kick-ups with a plastic cup.

Japanese high-school football match or Premier League top-four clash? Clips from Japanese school games have gone viral because their quality is off the charts.

The December 2006 Goal of the Month nominations will never be topped. And we mean never. We think the string of classic goals must have something to do with that iconic yellow-purple 2006 ball.

MEME 😆