This weekend saw the talk of a certain Wayne Rooney making a fairytale return to Everton resurface.

The Merseyside-born striker has always been touted with returning to Goodison Park when he eventually leaves Manchester United, over a decade after signing for them as a teenager.

However, Koeman brought the topic back this weekend suggesting he’d be “very pleased” to re-sign the 31-year-old.

Rooney was dropped from the United first XI a number of weeks ago and has been unable to force his way back into Mourinho’s plans as the autumn of his career approaches.

Instead, the much-maligned striker has been used as a substitute but is yet to make an impact from the bench when United require his services.

His performance levels have slipped in the past three seasons and it would appear that his untouchable status at Old Trafford is finally being questioned.

However, his slip in quality does beg the question why Everton would want to sign him, anyway.

In actuality, there are many reasons why the Toffees might be better off without Rooney and here’s what Koeman should consider:

Relationship with the fans

Over the past year, Rooney has gone some way to recovering his relationship with Everton fans, first appearing in Duncan Ferguson’s testimonial.

He slipped the blue shirt of Everton on again in 2015 and it appeared, for a brief moment, like normal order had been restored.

Obviously, Rooney returned to United and is still a Red Devil but the idea of Rooney returning one day was made more acceptable.

In Rooney’s own testimonial match, Everton were the team he chose to face and he has since admitted that the Toffees are the only other Premier League club he’d play for now.

However, there are still fans out there who cannot forgive Rooney, the super prodigy at Everton, who departed the Toffees at only 18 to provide United the best years of his career.

The idea that Rooney is returning for a magical fairy tale is tempered slightly considering that he can’t even get into the United team at the moment.

Is he even good enough?

As touched on in the previous slide, question marks surround Rooney’s current ability to perform at the highest level.

Mourinho must have become fed up with his lack of mobility and ability to change a game.

Rooney seems to slow a game down quite often and has lost the aggression and bite that made him such a wonderful player during the twilight of his career.

It’s no mean feat playing Premier League football for 15 years but at some point you have to respect when your legs can’t do it anymore and Rooney appears to have come to that stage in his career.

If anything, rejoining his boyhood charges now is more of an insult than anything else.

It basically suggests that I’m no longer good enough for United so I can return to Everton now.

In all seriousness, the Merseysider may struggle to get into the Everton first XI as they have some superb attacking options currently there including Yannick Bolasie, Kevin Mirallas, Gerard Deulofeu and Ross Barkley.

Retirement on his mind

Another reason Everton might think twice before re-signing Rooney is that it’s evident that he has retirement on his mind and these type of transfers are often better in theory then they turn out to be.

Rooney has already said he’ll retire from England duty after the next World Cup and when a player acknowledges that it’s time to retire internationally, it shows they are also aware that their career is coming to an end.

Why sign a player who is aware he can’t offer the same things he was once able to?

For a player like Rooney, a lucrative move to America or China would give his career a different ending and is what should be expected of him but moving to Goodison could damage his repaired image.