Derby County fans can’t question Wayne Rooney’s Rams claim involving Cardiff City | OneFootball

The 40-year-old Manchester United legend spoke on The Overlap's EFL fan debate

Wayne Rooney has made a Derby County claim involving Cardiff City that Rams fans can’t argue with.

Looking back on the 40-year-old's time as manager at Pride Park, without the 21‑point deduction in the 21/22 season, Rooney would have guided Derby to an 18th‑place finish rather than relegation.

Yes, he wouldn't have been able to do this without the brains of Liam Rosenior, but Derby still had to rely heavily on academy players to get them through that campaign, which is what Cardiff have had to do this season in League One.

After the Bluebirds were relegated from the Championship in 24/25, for the first time in 43 years, they had to reduce their wage bill. In doing so, Brian Barry-Murphy turned to Cardiff’s own academy products to get them promoted.

This is where Rooney's claim comes in...

Wayne Rooney's Derby County claim involving Cardiff City

On The Overlap’s EFL fan debate, via Wales Online, Wayne Rooney jumped in just as Not The Top 20 host Ali McCann was applauding Cardiff City and Brian Barry‑Murphy for how they’ve turned things around after going down.

McCann said, "They [Cardiff] got rid of about 10 big earners and underperformers from the Championship, got hold of five or six academy graduates and said: ‘You’re going to be a key part of this team."

Which is when Rooney replied with, "Just on that, I found that when we were at Derby.

"We were under all the embargoes and we had to throw in lads from the academy, who were probably not ready at the time, into the first team.

"But what I found with them is that they had no bad habits or bad experiences of playing first-team football in front of crowds.

"You put them in, give them a message of how to play and not to worry about making mistakes. So many of them, well, I was shocked. It was incredible.

"They had no doubts. That’s similar to what you’re explaining there [about Cardiff]."

From Derby’s perspective, perhaps no moment captures Rooney's words better than Derby's final-day 2-0 victory at Blackpool in May 2022, where Eiran Cashin and Malcolm Ebiowei scored.

Cashin, Ebiowei, Louie Watson, Max Bird, Jason Knight, Festy Ebosele and Luke Plange all started against the Tangerines that day, with Liam Thompson, Louie Sibley and Osazee Aghatise entering from the bench.

All of these players spent at least some time at Moor Farm with the Rams' academy. Ultimately, to have ten youngsters play in the same Championship game is desperate stuff, and although Cardiff's situation wasn't/isn't as bad, in the division below, there are still some similarities.

Wayne Rooney's lasting impact on his Derby County academy stars

Even though the only 'youngster' left at Derby from that Blackpool away team is Liam Thompson, who's now 24-years-old, the majority have gone on to have successful careers elsewhere.

Cashin, of course, left the East Midlands outfit to join Brighton for a reported fee of £9m in January 2025 after playing 144 times in a black and white shirt, and has just helped Blackburn Rovers stay up whilst on loan.

Midfielders Bird and Knight are still at Bristol City, where the latter is captain, and Ebosele spent 24/25 with Watford on loan from Udinese before joining Turkish Süper Lig side Istanbul Basaksehir.

In fact, the only player not playing professional football now is Aghatise, who plays in Germany's fourth-tier with Carl Ziess Jena.

Barry-Murphy told BBC Radio 5 last month that his Cardiff youngsters are "as good as a lot of the best young talent in Europe", so you'd expect a few to probably trump the achievements of the players Rooney worked with at Derby.