Wayne Rooney names the £20m duo that completely transformed Man Utd during his career

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Wayne Rooney has pinpointed the two signings that catapulted Manchester United to greater heights during his time at Old Trafford.

The Scouser won 12 major trophies during his illustrious 13-year spell with the Red Devils and is still the club’s all-time top goalscorer with 253 goals.

Rooney became the most expensive teenager in football when he completed his £30 million move from Everton in 2004. Now, he is nowhere near Man United’s most expensive transfers.

All of the current top ten players arrived well after Rooney plied his trade at Old Trafford, with Ruben Amorim sanctioning a further £218m to bolster his squad this summer.

However, the United legend has claimed that two players who arrived in Manchester for a combined £20.6m completely transformed the club’s fortunes during his playing days.

Edwin van der Sar and Michael Carrick are Man United’s most important signings

When speaking on the Rio Ferdinand Presents podcast, Rooney told his former teammate that Edwin van der Sar and Michael Carrick were the main reasons behind United’s success.

“There was two signings I thought, which, in our time, started us on that run of titles, and that was van der Sar and Carrick.”

Van der Sar joined Man United in a £2m deal from Fulham in 2005, with Carrick arriving the following summer in a £18.6m move from Tottenham Hotspur.

The Dutchman immediately became enamoured by the Man United fans and would go on to single-handedly win his club the Champions League after he saved all three of Chelsea’s penalties during the shootout in 2008.

Van der Sar also rejected Liverpool prior to his move to Craven Cottage, where he spent four years before his United tenure.

Carrick was equally as important to United, as the Englishman has been dubbed “smarter” than Paul Scholes and was a mainstay in the side that dominated English football for so many years.

Rooney had no major honours on his resume before the pair joined the club, and together they would all become integral cogs to one of the best sides in Premier League history.

How much Wayne Rooney would cost today?

According to The Athletic in 2022, football finance expert Kieran Maguire and his colleague Jason Laws developed a calculator that can convert transfer fees to determine how much they would cost today, taking inflation into account.

Given Rooney’s £30m transfer occurred in 2004, the calculator estimates that the forward would have cost Man United £118m in today’s market.

This fee would have made Rooney the most expensive transfer in British football before Alexander Isak completed his move to Liverpool on deadline day this summer.

Considering that his fee is less than half of what United paid for Matheus Cunha in June, the club’s tenth most expensive signing of all time. It is a damning recognition of just how poorly the club have operated in the market since the glory days.