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Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand has revealed that he was once so disgusted with the behaviour of Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard that he reached for the phone to ask Wayne Rooney “how are you allowing this?”.
Ferdinand won it all during his 12-year stint at United, where he was mostly playing under the iron rule of Sir Alex Ferguson – he even scored the final goal of the Ferguson era to seal a 2-1 win over Swansea City.
Earlier this week the former England international welcomed fellow United centre-back alumnus Phil Jones to his Rio Ferdinand Presents YouTube channel, and the pair looked back at the formidable dressing room culture that Ferguson cultivated. Jones remarked that “that winning mentality was so strong and powerful that no-one that came in could disrupt it.”
But the pair agreed that times have moved on and today’s mentality is a far cry from the one which brought years of success to Old Trafford.
Jones related that his penny-drop moment for how seriously the team took winning at all costs came when a hard-fought point at Stoke City was met with an atmosphere “like someone had died”.
And Ferdinand identified the incident that showed him that everything had changed beyond all recognition – seeing players dancing in the dressing room when United languished in sixth place in the Premier League.
The 45-year-old said: “I rang Wazza [Wayne Rooney] 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?’”
He continued that Rooney, one of the most successful United players in the club’s history, replied: “you can’t say nothing, it’s not the same anymore”.
Ferdinand said that United’s record goal scorer went on to tell him that “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.”
A bemused Jones replied “Can you imagine that happening in the dressing room we were in? You would get torched!”
Lingard developed a cult status at the club for scoring some magnificent goals, but these were largely overshadowed by his penchant for over-the-top celebrations and social media activity.
After impressing for a while at West Ham, he has faded into obscurity in the South Korean K League where he currently plays for FC Seoul.
Pogba – also one for a camera-pleasing celebration – failed to consistently live up to the hype of his return to Old Trafford and returned to Juventus on a free transfer.
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