One of the stranger stories in Irish football in recent years came in July 2021, when Ireland midfielder Jason Knight was injured by a pre-season tackle in training for his club Derby. What made the tackle strange was the fact that it came from his manager, Manchester United legend Wayne Rooney.
Rooney took over as player-manager of Derby in the winter of 2020, retiring as a player shortly after, and narrowly kept the club in the Championship despite financial difficulties.
As he prepared for his first full season in charge, Rooney accidentally took things too far in pre-season training with a wild challenge on Irishman Knight.
With only nine senior players available, Rooney stood in to make up the numbers for a practice game. Unfortunately for Knight, the challenge he received from Rooney left him sidelined with an ankle injury for eight weeks.
Speaking on the matter on a summer episode of Stick to Football, Rooney said:
Jason Knight, an Irish lad, the most honest player I’ve ever met, a brilliant attitude, would run through brick walls for you.
So we’re in the pre-season, for the 11 vs 11 they didn’t have enough players, so I joined in, and as the ball is coming, me and Knighty come in for a tackle, and I put him out – he was out for eight weeks.
It was just a tackle, like block tackle, but he had done his ankle and he was out for eight weeks
Knight missed the first five games of Derby’s 2021-22 season, as well as Ireland’s World Cup qualifiers against Portugal, Azerbaijan, and Serbia.
Colin Kazim-Richards was one of Knight’s teammates at the time, and he has revealed just how fuming the Irishman was at how he had managed to be ruled out for such a crucial run of games.
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Colin Kazim-Richards sheds new light on Wayne Rooney’s Jason Knight tackle
Kazim-Richards was the special guest on Broadtalks, a podcast hosted by ex-Manchester United man Kieran Richardson.
Richardson asked Kazim-Richards what he had thought of his former teammate Wayne Rooney, who managed Kazim-Richards for a season-and-a-half at Derby County.
Kazim-Richards spoke of Rooney’s ability to get the best out of players amid a period of immense financial turmoil for the Rams.
The former Turkey striker then went on to reveal that Rooney’s eagerness to get involved on the training pitch had caused Jason Knight’s injury in 2021 – and brought a furious reaction from the Ireland international.
His people skills are alright man…incorporating let’s say the kit man, making sure you all respect him [and how he feels]. At that time in Derby, he had to do that because we lost 19 points [in deductions], people didn’t know if they’d lost their jobs. He was very good at managing that.
[It was] a difficult time for him there because he couldn’t even register or sign players from the youth team. Whoever was registered, that was it, not even from the youth team.
We were on pre-season, someone’s gone down, Wayne’s jumped in. Jason Knight has the ball, he’s about to break out and Wayne has just smashed him. [Knight’s] syndesmosis – gone.
You know what, that’s Wayne, isn’t it?
Knighty’s passionate, he’s Irish – he was chewing.
It seems from Kazim-Richards’ story that Rooney’s tackle on the Ireland midfielder mightn’t have been quite as innocuous as the United legend professed on Stick to Football earlier this year.
Thankfully for Irish fans, Knight recovered from his injury – and he has been on a solid run of form in a green jersey.
Rooney, meanwhile, has begun to steady the ship after a ropey start in charge of Plymouth, who have lost just one of their last four Championship games.
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