SEE FAN'S VIEW ON WAYNE ROONEY EXIT

Seeing Wayne Rooney lift the Europa League in Stockholm was a wonderful moment. One of Manchester United's best players of the modern era, Rooney has now completed his trophy set.
He has won every trophy possible as a Man United player and in the same season he became our record goalscorer too. His achievements at the club are unparalleled, nobody can deny that.

Rooney was there to lift the Champions League in Moscow. Rooney was there to win five Premier League titles, an FA Cup, three League Cups and the World Club Championship.

Rooney has been there for some of my favourite memories as a Man United fan so him lifting the trophy in what could prove to be his final game as a United player seems like a fitting way for him to bow out.

Louis Saha, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Dimitar Berbatov, Carlos Tevez and so many more strikers have all been outstayed by Rooney.

He's been an ever-present but the time now feels right for him to leave United and what better way to go than lifting a European trophy as captain with 9,000 Reds chanting your name?

Rooney's mind might still be young but his body has caught up with him. He isn't the player he once was and that's why Jose Mourinho has used him sparingly this season, it's why Gareth Southgate has left him out of the England squad called up on Thursday, it's why he didn't start in Stockholm or at Wembley in the League Cup final.

Rooney will always be remembered as a United great but the reality is that the club is beginning to move forward without him.

United have had a bad habit recently of letting great players leave the club through the backdoor like Patrice Era, Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic but Rooney is getting the send off he deserves. We're seeing the end of an era.

Rooney being replaced by 16-year-old Angel Gomes in possibly his last Old Trafford game was powerful and symbolic because he was once that exciting teenager who everybody talked about, now he has passed the torch on to another. To then follow that up by lifting the Europa League is poetic.

That incident in 2010 when he tried to join Manchester City may have irreparably scarred a certain bond fans have with Rooney but few can argue just how important a talisman he has been for so long and I've got no doubt that fire in his belly will be reignited when he does leave United, potentially back to Everton where it all began for him.

Whatever happens, I want to thank Rooney for all the memories he's crafted, all the goals he's scored, all the trophies he's lifted, all the times he's made me fall over the seat in front celebrating a goal and if the final memory of Rooney as a United player is him lifting the Europa League in Stockholm, what a way to finish.

Sam Peoples

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