Ken Jones: Rush to praise Rooney was not in keeping with Wenger's usual style

Some years ago, Frank McGhee, late of this life and the Daily Mirror, gave a football manager some advice about what people now refer to as media relations. "Just keep talking," he said. "When a newspaper or broadcasting man comes around, don't try to feed him some particular story. Chances are it'd be nothing he could use. Just keep talking and he'll get his story."

Sometimes the effects of listening to football managers, and sports people generally, are a good deal like those which scientists expect astronauts to experience. One has the sensation of being whirled through emptiness, weightless and practically disembodied, untouched by gravity, sealed away from reality. Sometimes, however, managers speak with a directness that erases equivocation as a wet thumb erases chalk from a blackboard.

Last week, for example, and a troublesome example it was for toilers of my generation, Arsène Wenger stated that the Everton prodigy Kevin Rooney is the most naturally gifted young English footballer he has ever seen. Listening to Wenger speak on television after Rooney's terrific match-winning goal put paid to Arsenal's heady vision of going through the league season undefeated, I winced. Because Wenger is a wily bird, I even wondered if he was trying to deflect attention from the collapse of earlier confident pronouncements as well as to protect his beleaguered goalkeeper, David Seaman, from further criticism.

It is odd, though, is it not, that the manager who now seems to have the most urbane and progressive approach to the development of young footballers should be so indiscreet when asked about Rooney's potential? It is not known what David Moyes made of Wenger's words, but since there are a number of loose ends to be tied up before Rooney is safely on board as a fully fledged professional it can be imagined that the Everton manager was not best pleased.

Because it is not necessary to probe for hidden qualities in Rooney's game, to appreciate some subtle role in the wider scheme of things, even people coming fresh to football would identify him as an outstanding prospect. As for the extravagant attention Rooney is getting and will continue to get, in newspapers and across the airwaves, it is par for the crazy course of modern sports coverage.

No sooner had the echo of Wenger's words died down than the Sun newspaper carried an interview with Gary Lineker in which the BBC presenter and former England striker suggested that Rooney could happily operate with in tandem with Michael Owen in the national team. We can be pretty sure that Lineker was thinking ahead, but he should have made this abundantly clear instead of leaving the Sun to doctor his opinion to suit their own immoderate ends.

Let us go back four years. When Owen scored a brilliant goal against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup finals it was not difficult to imagine that the Liverpool striker would become one of the game's outstanding opportunists in the mould of Jimmy Greaves and Gerd Müller. Unfortunately, this was not enough for compulsively excitable observers in this trade, even one or two former players in the employ of television companies. A ludicrous comparison was made with Pele, whose marvellous international career was launched at the World Cup finals in Sweden 40 years earlier.

By a majority vote, Pele is the greatest all-round player who has ever lived. Owen has splendidly fulfilled his potential as a goalscorer but remains average in general play.

My view of many episodes in sport is probably strange. However, we would all do well to remember that the history of games contains many examples of performers who were rushed before their time. I am not thinking so much about the pitfalls of fame as a process of proper development.

Already, we know enough about Rooney's young life to fill the first chapter of an autobiography which, if all goes well, will probably be written before his 20th birthday, along with an instruction manual. From the moment that Rooney adroitly controlled a dropping ball, turned and bent it into the top near corner of Seaman's goal at Goodison Park last week, he ceased to be a boy on the way up. "Wenger should have bitten on his words," a friend said the other night. "You can say that again," I replied. He did.