Rio Ferdinand has played down Wayne Rooney calling him ‘arrogant’ and says they argued regularly during their time together at Manchester United.
The duo won five Premier League titles at Old Trafford and were also a major part of the team’s Champions League triumph in 2008.
But, Rooney surprised United supporters during an event over the weekend after he labelled Ferdinand arrogant, called Cristiano Ronaldo annoying and said having a conversation with Tevez ‘was the biggest disappointment of my life’.
Speaking about Ferdinand, Rooney said: ‘Rio is a top player, but he is just arrogant. ‘You get paid a lot of money at Man United to kick the ball into the net, so just do it.
‘I said: ‘Do your job, and give me the ball, give Ronaldo the ball. Stop standing there messing about.’ Rio is a top lad but he sometimes did forget he was a defender.’
When asked about Rooney’s comments, Ferdinand said on Vibe with Five: ‘It was at a signing, some of us do these things where you go and talk to an audience. They’re quite funny, you have a few beers and you get loose lips a little bit when you’re in there.
‘Your guard’s down when you don’t see the big cameras and microphones. ‘He said a few things about a few former players, he said about me being arrogant and how we argued and he told tell me, ‘do your job’ etc.
‘He’s referring to when on the pitch we would argue, either in front of everyone at Old Trafford or in the training ground – me and him always argued.’
When asked to give an example, Ferdinand replied: ‘I’d be thinking, ‘just shoot man’. Don’t be doing all these fancy passes, let Scholesy and them do that.
‘I want you to be up there, cutting edge and bang… be decisive. Wazza could score two goals in a game but not be involved in the game and he would come off with the hump.
‘Because he’s a street footballer, he wants to be involved in the 90 minutes playing all the time and I used to say, ‘bruv, I just want goals, I don’t care what else you do’.
‘If the ball came up and he weren’t holding it up I’d be screaming, ‘Wazza hurry up’. ‘He would go, expletive, ‘you do your own job’, and we’d be back and forth constant but we drove each other.’
