Rooney stays. Sir Alex Ferguson, take a bow.

SO Wayne Rooney stays at Manchester United. After an eventful week, Sir Alex Ferguson can happily walk out on to the steps outside Old Trafford and take a deep bow.

In the single sweep of a pen, the 67-year-old has managed to come out of one of the toughest periods of his 25-year reign smelling of bright red roses. And a red-faced Rooney gets rid of the for sale signs less than 48 hours after saying he was off.

Not only has Sir Alex persuaded Rooney and his agent Paul Stretford to settle for something a long way short of their hoped-for £250,000-a-week, he has also backed the owners into a corner.

The Yankee-doodle Glazers, who have reduced United to bit-part players in the big picture with their huge interest repayments, had no choice other than to agree to Rooney's demands for a pay rise nearly two years before the end of his contract.

And the unspoken reassurance is this: United are still a world class club, despite those Glazer debts.

Rooney will probably be on around £170,000-a-week, though we may never learn the full details of this shiny new four-year deal.

But we can be sure it's some way short of Yaya Toure's Manchester City pay packet. Sheikh Mansour has promised him what amounts to £220,000-a-week if City finish in the top four this season and earn a place in the Champions League for the first time.

Ultimately, Rooney has had to compromise. With FIFA and UEFA promising a salary cap, Stretford was hoping for that dreamt-of best-in-the-world million pounds a month.

Instread, Rooney will be tied to United long after Sir Alex has finally reached for the pipe a slippers. And if he attempts to leave before June 2015, the transfer fee will be exorbitant. Somewhere in the £60m bracket.

Sir Alex said: "I told the boy that the door is always open and I'm delighted Wayne has agreed to stay.

"Sometimes, when you're in a club, it can be hard to realise just how big it is and it takes something like the events of the last few days to make you understand.

"It's been a difficult week, but the intensity of the coverage is what we expect at Manchester United.

"I think Wayne now understands what a great club Manchester United is.

"I'm pleased he has accepted the challenge to guide the younger players and establish himself as one of United's great players. It shows character and belief in what we stand for.

"I'm sure everyone involved with the club will now get behind Wayne and show him the support he needs to produce the performances we know he is capable of."

With Stoke to come on Sunday, Rooney is now required to produce the kind of performances United fans enjoyed last season rather than the routine fare we have been subjected to during and since the World Cup.

Rooney himself released a statement saying: Rooney, 24, added: "I said on Wednesday the manager's a genius and it's his belief and support that have convinced me to stay. I'm delighted to sign another deal at United.

"I'm signing a new deal in the absolute belief that the management, coaching staff, board and owners are totally committed to making sure United maintains its proud winning history — which is the reason I joined the club in the first place.

"I'm sure the fans over the last week have felt let down by what they've read and seen, but my position was from concern over the future.

"The fans have been brilliant with me since I arrived and it's up to me through my performances to win them over again."

Given that mobs were forming outside his house last night and death threats had been made against him, Rooney really had no choice.

The winner here, without question, is Sir Alex Ferguson. Whether Rooney can respond with goals and peformances is another question.

One small query I didn't have time to raise on Sky News this morning: Just how will Rooney's team-mates respond to this undeserved pay-rise, which will make him the best-paid player in the history of a club which has fielded such luminaries as George Best, Bobby Charlton, Bryan Robson and Eric Cantona?

We shall find out on Sunday...

Champions League preview: It's Rooney tunes

ONE name will dominate this week’s Champions League return around Europe. Here’s a clue. It rhymes, some would say aptly, with Pained Loony.

Wayne Rooney’s representatives have spent the last 24 hours letting it be known their money making machine will not sign an extension to his current contract, due to expire in the summer of 2012.

So all the talk before Wednesday’s Group C clash against Turkey’s Bursaspor at Old Trafford will be of the man affectionately known as Shrek.

Will he play? Will he cross Manchester to City in January – or perhaps Barcelona or Chelsea will snap him up for a world record £80 million? Look, this isn’t just supposition any more. The 24-year-old has scored a single goal for United this season after last winter’s 34-goal spree.

Since allegations surrounding his private life emerged – it was claimed with some relish that he had slept with a prostitute while his wife Colleen was pregnant with their son Kai – Rooney has been a peripheral figure at United. Sir Alex Ferguson has insisted his striker has had an ankle injury ever since - but after his mediocre performance in England’s 0-0 draw with Montenegro a week ago, Rooney insisted he has been fit throughout the turmoil following the News of the World’s revelations.

Rooney said: “I have been fit all season. No ankle injury. I haven’t missed a training session.”

Which of course set him on an instant collision course with his manager, with Rooney playing the crash test dummy. Nobody makes rock-hard Glaswegian Fergie, the son of a dockyard worker, look stupid.

And under the Webster ruling (Article 17 of Fifa's transfer regulations, named after the former Hearts player Andy Webster), Rooney could pay off the final year of his current annual salary and buy out his contract for a small compensation fee. That means he could go for £5.5m at the end of the season.

With United denying they will sell him (“nonsense” is how they describe the current reports) and Real Madrid insisting they had no plans to fork out another £80m for Cristiano Ronaldo’s ugly step-brother, it’s tempting to think this will all blow over, like it did for John Terry and Peter Crouch after allegations over their private lives.

Both are happily back playing for club and country. Surely Rooney, who went into the World Cup as “the best striker in the world” will patch it up with his boss (like he appears to have done with his wife, he even took the mum-in-law shopping over the weekend) and they’ll all live happily ever after? But no, this one won’t go away. Sleeping with a prostitute is one thing. Contradicting Sir Alex Ferguson in public is another.

Fergie has made his decision, Rooney is standing firm. Like so many before him – David Beckham, Jaap Stam, Bryan Robson, Paul McGrath, Eric Cantona, Peter Schmeichel, Nicky Butt and Ruud van Nistelrooy among them – Rooney is about to find out that no player is bigger than Manchester United. And no star shines brighter than Sir Alex Ferguson in the red half of Manchester. Fergie is the master of knowing when a player should go.

No matter how talented, no matter how many replica shirts he may shift, the sell-by date is set by the gaffer. On the sidelines you’ve got former United boss Tommy “Rent-a-gob” Docherty insisting: “Ferguson must go, not Rooney”.

Clearly the man is deluded.

There can be only one winner here and it isn’t Shrek. United survived the departure of all those stars listed above – some apparently at the peak of their powers - and have managed quite nicely, thank you.

While we wait to find out whether Rooney will start against the Turks on Wednesday, some may stwitch their to Rafa Benitez. Since leaving Liverpool four months ago (and what a perfectly timed move that was!) Benitez has been under scrutiny at Internazionale.

Signed to replace Real-bound Jose Mourinho by the European champions, Benitez has struggled to convince at the San Siro.

Wednesday night’s visit of Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham, handily placed in both Group A and the Premier League, could be decisive for Benitez if he is to convince the Italians he is a worthy successor to Mourinho. After a squeaky 1-0 win over Cagliari over the weekend, Benitez said he was considering buying reinforcements in January and he said of the Spurs clash: "It will be a difficult encounter, they’re strong. And fast."

But first, on Tuesday night, Chelsea go to Spartak Moscow in Group F while Arsenal have got Ukraine’s not-to-be-sneezed-at Shakhtar Donetzk at the Emirates Stadium in Group H.

Chelsea remain clear front-runners in the Premier League despite Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Aston Villa, but they won’t relish a return to Moscow, where John Terry famously allowed Manchester United to lift the European Cup in the 2008 penalty shoot-out on that notoriously plastic pitch. This week Terry must deal with Brazilian Ari on the Astroturf.

He’s a strapping six-footer who has scored seven goals in 17 starts for Spartak, currently fourth in the Russian league. And I’m being told to back Ari.

Bayern Munich, trailing a massive 1-0 points behind surprise Bundesliga leaders Mainz and Borrusia Dortmund, have got Cluj Napoca at home while Roma are waiting to snatch top spot in Group E by beating Basel. Bayern need Miroslav Klose, internationally sublime, to score a couple of goals for his Bayern paymasters.

Otherwise terms like crisis may be needed for the side currently ”doing a Liverpool” in Germany, where they are languishing in 10th spot.

Real Madrid take on AC Milan at the Bernebeu in what could be the game of the week in Group G where Ajax and Auxerre appear to be battling it out for third spot and a play in the Europa League.

Barcelona should be far too good for Copenhagen at the Nou Camp on Wednesday night which should open up Group D nicely for Panathinaikos or Russians Rubin Kazan, who meet in Greece.

Werder Bremen’s trip to Dutch champions FC Twente could have significant impact in Group A, where both teams currently trail joint-leaders Spurs and Inter by three points.

In Group B, clear leaders Lyon entertain Portguese giants Benfica while Schalke 04 should be too much for Israel’s Hapoel Tel Aviv. Rangers, currently second in Group C behind United, will do well to take a point off Spain’s Valencia at Ibrox and cling on to second place.