Mourinho Gives Rooney 48 Hours To Decide On His Future.

Chelsea boss Jose Mounrinho has drawn the line on the prospect of having Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney at Stamford Bridge before the close of the transfer window by midnight of September 2.

Rooney, 27, played the whole 90 minutes of Monday night

uneventful 0-0 draw between the Premier League champions and ‘The Blues’ at Old Trafford and was probably the brightest player on the pitch.

He was the one player on the pitch whose name was chanted about by a cross section of both sets of fans at the game last night with the traveling fans rendering: “Wayne Rooney, we’ll sign you next week.”

Mourinho praised the old Trafford faithful for getting behind their wantaway forward amidst uncertainties concerning his future.

“It was fantastic. In other countries it would not be possible. It was very English,” he told BBC Sport.

Chelsea has had two offers for the England international rejected by United, however, the Portuguese, who had earlier said Chelsea is also working on “plan B and C” insists it’s high time the striker makes his intentions clear.

“This is a special club with special fans and I think probably now he thinks he wants to stay,” Mourinho told Sky Sports after the match.

“If that is his decision we will respect that and say it is over. If now he does not want to leave, we are out of the thing but we need to know what is happening.”

Rooney returned to United’s starting lineup, after former manager Sir Alex Ferguson revealed last season the striker, who joined from Everton in 2004, wants to part ways with the club.

Interestingly, he started against his primary suitor who would offer him a first-team shirt as against the second fiddle many had expected him to play for the champions this season.

Nevertheless, the new United boss, who had said he would need Rooney “if for any reason we (United) had an injury to Robin (van Persie),” named the trio alongside Danny Welbeck in his starting lineup, while Mourinho started the cautious game with non of his recognised strikers.

When asked by the BBC Sport whether Chelsea will continue with their efforts to sign the United striker, Mourinho said: “We didn’t start the story. Someone started the story by him saying he wanted to go to Chelsea.

So somebody has to finish it. One way or another way. He has to say ‘I want to leave’ or ‘I want to stay.’

Asked how long he was prepared to wait before drawing on his plan Bs and Cs, Mourinho replied: “Twenty-four hours, forty-eight hours.”

“If you look at a manager like me, a club like us and the people who works at the club with me, we are not silly enough to try and get a player from a big club that doesn’t want to sell,” he added.

“We are not silly enough to try something if somebody didn’t start it.”