Former Man Utd star Wayne Rooney has provided some fascinating insight into the inner workings of the dressing room during his time under Sir Alex Ferguson.
Things seem to have been far from stable at times this season, with Jose Mourinho coming under increasing pressure amid poor results.
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The situation hasn’t been helped by Paul Pogba’s public comments at times, while the Portuguese tactician has never been shy in publicly slamming his players if he deems it necessary.
In turn, that has seemingly led to tension and a disconnect between the manager and the players, something that Rooney has revealed never happened during his time at Old Trafford in the Ferguson era as they adopted a different approach.
“The likes of Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, Rio Ferdinand, myself – players who had Man United in them and wanted the best for that club – would never allow anyone to mess that up,” he is quoted as saying by Sky Sports.
“We controlled the dressing room ourselves. Alex Ferguson didn’t really need to control that. The players had the trust of the manager to do that themselves.”
While it could be argued that Mourinho perhaps had that in the past during spells with Chelsea and Inter, his troubles in more recent times have seemingly stemmed from the lack of trust and faith between the two parties.
How he likely wishes for a similar scenario currently where he can rely on key senior figures to lead the way for the rest of the squad. Perhaps he has that in the likes of Juan Mata, Nemanja Matic and others, but time will tell if it leads to a sustained run of positive results to get them on track to achieve their objectives this season.