How Wayne Rooney reacted to Paul Pogba & Jesse Lingard ‘dancing on Instagram’ – with Rio Ferdinand making concerned phone call to fellow Man Utd legend

The Red Devils have found consistency hard to come by since Sir Alex Ferguson retired on the back of a 13th Premier League title triumph in 2013. Trophies have been collected since then, but little return has been seen on sizeable investment in the transfer market.

United have always had plenty of quality at their disposal, including World Cup winner Pogba and ex-England international Lingard, but full potential has proved difficult to unlock. Those efforts have not been aided at times by players seemingly taking their eye off the ball.

Ferdinand believes that was the case when Pogba and Lingard appeared more interested in building their social media followings than picking up precious points, with the former Red Devils defender telling his ‘Rio Presents’ podcast when asked when the culture at Old Trafford began to shift: “I'll tell you when it changed, from the outside at least. I rang Wazza [Rooney] when I saw Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard dancing on Instagram when we were sixth in the league. I rang Wazza and said, 'what's going on here? How are you allowing this?' And he said, 'you can't say nothing man, it's not the same anymore'. He said, 'it's not just those two, there would be a big group looking at me like I'm mad if I said anything'.”

More questions are being asked of the mentality in United’s dressing room at present, with Erik ten Hag overseeing a slow start to the 2024-25 campaign. He may end up paying the price with his job, as underperforming players fail to emulate the efforts of Rooney and Ferdinand before them.