Gary Neville and Roy Keane have revealed the pressure they used to face from Manchester United when they were on international duty.
Neville represented England on 85 occasions during his career while Keane made 67 appearances and scored nine goals for the Republic of Ireland. However, both men have revealed that United did not always look favourably on them representing their countries.
Speaking to Sky Bet ahead of the World Cup, Neville explained: "Glenn Hoddle once had a go at me for withdrawing from the England squad. He didn’t think it was done right, he wanted me to stay and have treatment at the actual camp and stay with the team, but Manchester United wanted me back for treatment, those age-old things.
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"Manchester United had a lot of power with England because they had seven players there. Looking back it's probably not right but, at the end of the day, that’s how it was."
"I was under constant pressure when I was going away with Ireland from the Manchester United manager," Keane added. "Constantly told, 'You shouldn’t be going over'.
"Even if you weren’t injured and you had a little knock, they wouldn’t want you going, it was constant pressure. I used to see other lads going away and it used to frustrate me, I always felt like they looked at Ireland as maybe not as important as England.
"I thought the club and the manager had an issue with me going to play with Ireland and it used to drive me mad, and it put you under huge pressure. I found it very strange and bizarre why a manager would do that to any player."
This is not the first time that accusations have been made against Sir Alex Ferguson regarding his lack of support for international breaks. Last year, Hoddle wrote in his book serialised by The Guardian : "Dealing with United wasn’t easy.
"There were problems getting players to report for duty at times and I had a row with Ferguson over two of his players before one friendly. His conduct was unprofessional when we spoke on the phone.
"I wasn’t going to use the players but I wanted them to join up because we were preparing for the World Cup. But he wasn’t having it.
"He was ranting and raving, even when I said I would send them back once the meetings were out of the way. I can’t repeat what he called me. I just put the phone down."
Ferguson did apologise to Hoddle after the incident, however, he remained unhappy with the situation. England begin their 2022 Qatar World Cup campaign on Monday when they face Iran.
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