The Wayne Rooney saga may have come to a surprising, sudden and unexpected end last Friday, but it is going to take a long time for the player to rebuild the bridges he so spectacularly burned.

It was, without any overstatement, one of the weirdest weeks of the football season. Monday: rumours surface that Rooney won’t be signing a new deal with ­Manchester United. Wednesday: Rooney issues a statement confirming he won’t be signing a new deal with United. Friday: Rooney signs a new five-year deal with United.

The whole thing was bordering on the surreal, and to me it smacked of agent manipulation and money grabbing.

Some have suggested it may have been Sir Alex Ferguson playing one of his most elaborate and complex mind games ever. But I don’t buy that. If it had been orchestrated from Old Trafford towers, then Rooney would never have been allowed to issue a statement saying the club was lacking in ambition. That’s too close to the bone.

Far more likely is that the whole thing was a cunning plan hatched by Rooney’s agent Paul Stretford to get United to improve their offer to his client.

When contract negotiations between player and club reach an impasse it is common practice for the agent to leak the news. Making it known that a player is thinking of leaving is a great way of forcing a club’s hand and getting them to up their offer.

And that is probably what happened here. Only the media went into frenzy mode because it was Rooney in the equation.

In the player’s statement last Wednesday he said the reason he wanted to move on was because he didn’t believe the club’s ambitions matched his own. Which was actually fair enough.

But what can possibly have been said in the course of 36 hours to change his opinion on that? How could either the manager or the owners have made him a promise that they will match his ambitions?

Sure, maybe they said that they have plans to sign a couple of big name players in the future. But then again, I am sure Scunthorpe United have plans to sign big name players in the future, if things work out the way they would like.

The chances are we will never really know what went on behind the scenes to provoke such a dramatic u-turn. At least until Rooney finishes writing (colouring in?) his autobiography.

But the fact remains that in doing what he did last week, the player has made a lot of people unhappy – the fans, the media and, most crucially, his teammates. And those are the burnt bridges I was talking about.

The fans were livid at the idea that he may end up not just leaving the club but leaving for bitter rivals Manchester City. Although that obviously didn’t materialise, the very fact that he didn’t deny that it was an option was enough to cause mass unrest. You don’t toy with the fans’ emotions like that. Not where City are involved.

The media, on the other hand, don’t like being played. And it seems to all intents and purposes that they were used like pawns in a public game of contract chess. That won’t sit well with the tabloids, and if Rooney thought he was under scrutiny before, he should just wait and see what it will be like now.

Finally, and most importantly, Rooney’s comments will have damaged one relationship more than any other – the one with his colleagues.

By claiming the club lacked ambition he was essentially saying the current team is not up to scratch and that they were not good enough to challenge at the top.

In my opinion this is exactly true, but by saying so publicly he will have created some serious dressing room unrest. He now not only has to look those same people he disrespected in the eye, he also has to turn out with them on the pitch. And that will be neither easy nor comfortable.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter that Rooney claims he did what he did and said what he said in the interests of the club. Even if his actions were honourable, he has trodden on a serious amount of toes.

We all know football is a fickle old game. And it could well be that this whole episode will soon be forgotten, especially if Rooney gets back on the pitch and starts banging in the goals.

But personally I think this is one cut that will take time to heal. And I have my doubts whether the damage at peer level can ever truly be repaired.

Oh well. At least he will have plenty of money to sit and count when his mates no longer want to play with him…

His left foot

Every time I watch Gareth Bale play football I can’t get one thought out of my head: how I wish he was English.

The young Tottenham Hotspur player is rapidly turning into one of football’s greatest talents, and that burgeoning reputation won’t have been damaged by his hat-trick against Inter last Wednesday night.

For obvious genetic reasons, left-sided players are in considerably shorter supply than right-sided. And truly world-class left-sided players are harder to find than people who don’t think Rooney looks like Shrek.

But Bale has it all, and he has it in abundance. We are talking here about a player who, as a child, was not allowed to use his left foot during PE at school to give the other children a chance.

The question is will Spurs be able to hang on to the Welsh star? Plenty of the giant clubs were already sniffing around even before Wednesday night’s display. The scouts will be flooding to White Hart Lane now.

I’m not suggesting Spurs are a small club, especially now they are playing Champions League football. But if the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Chelsea or Milan were to come calling, it would be hard for either the club or the player to say no. When I said earlier it was a crying shame Bale is not English there were two reasons for that.

The first one was almost entirely altruistic. When you see a talent like that, you want him to play for your team. And boy, would I like Bale to play for England.

The second reason is, however, considerably less selfish. Playing for Wales is obviously something that will give Bale immense amounts of pride during his life. But the downside to it is that it means he has almost no chance of ever showing off his talents at the highest level of the international game.

Wales don’t very often qualify for major tournaments and are practically out of the 2012 European Championships already after yet another disastrous start to a qualifying campaign.

As good as Bale may be, he is not going to be able to change that pattern alone. And that could mean, quite feasibly, that we will never get to see him at a World Cup, for example.

Just like Ryan Giggs before him, his route to recognition as one of the greatest players in the world is going to be hindered by his international career rather than enhanced by it.

And you have to say that is a great pity.

The beautiful south

No less than five drivers go into today’s third from last grand prix of the Formula One season harbouring dreams of taking the crown.

And that in itself would be more than enough to make South Korea’s debut event one of the most enthralling races in recent memory.

But the fact that today’s contest takes place in a new country on a new track that nobody has ever raced before, pushes the excitement levels up to new heights.

Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Mark Webber, Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel are all still within 31 points of each other and there are still a maximum of 75 to play for. Some of those obviously have a better chance than others.

But there can be no better leveller of the playing field than a new circuit. So new, in fact, that they were still laying asphalt on it two weeks ago.

None of the drivers, nor the teams for that matter, will have past experience to call on, and their first taste of how it handles didn’t come until last Friday. It’s a whole new ball game.

And that should mean all five drivers will be on pretty equal ground when the serious business gets underway at 8 a.m. this morning. (Yes, there are two 8 o’ clocks on a Sunday as well apparently).

For the last two world champions, Button and Hamilton, today’s somewhat unpredictable race is their last real chance. Anything less than a win for either of them will effectively put them out of contention. If not mathematically, then realistically.

The other three drivers, including Alonso, who I stupidly wrote-off a few weeks ago, will know they still live to fight another day. At least as far as Brazil in a fortnight’s time.

Who would I put my money on this morning? Sorry, not a chance. I never get it right anyway.

Banner of the week

Only one contender for this, and it could quite possibly be the best football banner ever.

It was on display during last Sunday’s Merseyside derby and, unsurprisingly, was in the Everton section:

It read: ‘Agents Hicks and Gillett: Mission Accomplished.’

Truly excellent.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com