Latest Derby County news from DerbyshireLive brings you what former Rams defender Curtis Davies has had to say about former Rams boss Wayne Rooney

Former Derby County captain Curtis Davies.

Curtis Davies has revealed how he landed himself in hot water with Derby County’s medical staff after proposing to play up front in a final-day showdown with Sheffield Wednesday despite not being fully fit.

The Rams came from behind on two occasions to snatch a point, which stopped them from being relegated to League One as Wycombe were relegated along with Rotherham and the Owls.

Davies said the idea he had planted in Rooney’s mind of playing up front did not go down well with the club’s physios and doctors given he was recovering from an Achilles injury.

Speaking at the launch of Ladbrokes’ new platform Ladisfaction, Davies said: “It’s funny, I can remember as a group we were talking about some stuff that was going around on Twitter, on how Wayne Rooney was going to sign for Derby.

“To be honest, we were all just laughing at the idea of it on the way back from a game – I can remember we’re just playing cards, or whatever, and we’re wondering who made the story up. Then, Thursday morning comes around and Wazza rocks up, just in the changing room.

“I look over at him and he kind of made a beeline for me because I was one of the more experienced players in the team, and we’d played against each other a few times over the years. I’ll leave out the expletives, but basically I said to him “what the hell are you doing here?

“He said he’d obviously been out in Washington and everyone missed the family back home, and Coleen wanted to get home, which, of course, was fair enough. So he was technically brought in as a player-coach, although he didn’t do a bit of coaching while he was playing.

“And then Phillip Cocu left the club and Wazza was given the keys, basically. We were already on a downward spiral so things didn’t start great for him, and at the time I was still out injured.

“I can remember looking at the last, say eight, games of the season and just thinking a couple of wins would have been enough to keep us up… but we were just losing game after game after game.

“That’s when I put an idea forward to Wayne which, to be honest, the physios weren’t happy about at all…

“I was on the bike one day and I just said, even though I was still injured “Gaffer, if you need me at any end of the pitch for the last 10 minutes of a game, I’ll give you what I’ve got.”

“At first he thought I was joking, but as soon as he knew I was serious, he had this idea in his head and just ran with it, which got me in trouble with the doctors and the physios.

“They pulled me in and asked me what I’d done, but I told them what I told Wayne, that I was dead serious about strapping up and playing if it was going to help us. I offered to sign a waiver, or do whatever I needed to do to protect the club against my decision, because they’d done so well with my rehab and everything. But I was willing to do it for the team and for the gaffer, and I think he really loved that.

“And so, yeah, I ended up coming on for the last 10 minutes of the game against Sheffield Wednesday, where we stayed up, which was just an incredible day for us. Wazza just really liked the idea that someone wanted to be out there, putting themselves in the firing line… that was a big thing for him.”

Rooney could not keep Derby up in the following season, however, as the club were put into administration by their former owner Mel Morris.

The club were also twice docked points which meant a 21-point penalty left Rooney facing an almost impossible job.

Derby did make a good fist of it but in the end they finished in the bottom three and were relegated to League One.

Rooney then quit in the subsequent June as David Clowes completed his takeover and went on to manage DC United.

A disastrous spell at Birmingham City followed before he moved on to Plymouth but he left midway through the season with Argyle also eventually going on to be relegated.

In a documentary about Birmingham City, minority owner and NFL legend Tom Brady questioned his “work ethic” to which Rooney hit back.

And Davies could understand why the former Rams boss was irritated.

He said: “Things just didn’t work out for him (at Derby) and his staff in the end, which was a shame. They were a great group to work with; Liam Rosenior really was an excellent and meticulous first-team coach, as was Justin Walker, and Wayne was the manager, the one who would pop in with his own insights and thoughts.

“My overriding thing when it comes to Wayne was just how normal he was. You know, when you think he’s a multi-millionaire, a Manchester United legend, an England legend, one of the best to ever play the game… he was still so normal, and the lads loved that about him.

“He’d come in and chat with the young kids just as he’d sit and chat with me, who was older than him. He had a great humility to him that made the lads warm to him, and when he talked about football, you listened.

“I think it was a bit harsh how he was portrayed in that Birmingham City documentary, to be honest. They painted him as lazy, but he actually made some really good points about the difference between football and American football… and how the season over here is so long compared to over there, it’s a different job altogether, so it’s hard to compare him to, say, Tom Brady putting in however many hours a day he used to do. The American football season is over a much shorter period of time, so it’s easier to put those long hours in, but it just doesn’t work in football, or in management, the same.

“To be honest, I totally understand why he was annoyed with Tom Brady’s comments. Look, did he do the best job in the world with Birmingham? No; I can’t protect him on that, and he knows that himself.

“The frustrating thing for him was obviously that he was just waiting for the January transfer window to come so he could bring some fresh faces in, and he never got to do that. It was a tough position he was in at the time, and a tough position the club were in, too. It didn’t happen for him, but there was so much going on around the place.

“Look, in a roundabout way, that season might have been the best thing to have ever happened to the football club, because they were able to reset, they were able to do what they did financially in terms of restructuring the team, and now they’re in a great position where they’re in the best place they’ve been since they got relegated from the Premier League all those years ago.”