Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand has recalled the time he phoned up Wayne Rooney in disgust over Jesse Lingard and Paul Pogba.
Ferdinand enjoyed huge success alongside Rooney, where they won 12 major trophies together – which includes five top-flight titles and the Champions League.
Former West Ham centre-back Ferdinand departed Old Trafford in 2014 before retiring at QPR the following year, with Rooney staying at the Theatre of Dreams until 2017.
Following Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013, with Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs retiring soon after, there was a huge change in the dressing room dynamic.
It was something that Phil Jones commented on when he appeared on ex-teammate Ferdinand’s YouTube channel.
Jones, who joined United in 2011 before departing 12 years later, said: “Back then, when you look at the dressing room we had.
“We had so many incredible, powerful leaders that wouldn’t let anything get in the way of the team’s performance and the team winning.
“That winning mentality was so strong and powerful that no-one that came in could disrupt that.
“I think now players maybe don’t have the ability to call people out anymore and the power to tell them, ‘That’s not what we do at this football club… don’t come in here and start acting like that, that doesn’t work here.’
“I’m not saying that happens every single day at the club but if we lost a game, we’d have a meeting the next day, not even with the coaches.
“The leaders would be saying, ‘this is not good enough’ after one loss.”
Ferdinand then revealed how he once phoned Rooney up in anger having seen a social media video of Pogba and Lingard dancing together in the dressing room in 2017 – while United were languishing sixth in the table.
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Ferdinand recalled: “I’ll tell you when it changed, well I think from the outside and you can correct me if I’m wrong.
“I rang Wazza when I saw Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard dancing when we were sixth in the league on Instagram.
“I rang Wazza, and said, ‘What is going on here? How are you allowing this?’
“And he said, ‘You can’t say nothing, it’s not the same anymore.’
“He said, ‘It’s not only Jesse and Paul, there’s a load of them all together who would all be looking at me like I’m mad if I said anything.'”
Quick to reply, Jones then stated: “Can you imagine that happening in the dressing room we were in?! You would get torched.”
Both Pogba and Lingard were guilty of inconsistent performances during their time at United – despite turning up in big games.
Lingard scored winners in the FA Cup final and League Cup final, while also scoring in the Community Shield against Leicester in 2016.
As for Pogba, he was on target in the Europa League final in 2017 triumph over Ajax.
Neither of the men are on United’s books today, with Lingard plying his trade in South Korea for FC Seoul.
While Pogba is currently unemployed, but seems set to return to football having had his four-year doping ban reduced to 18 months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
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