Rio Ferdinand has admitted that he and Wayne Rooney "always argued" at Manchester United in a response to being labelled "arrogant" by him.
Rooney's comments made headlines on Monday, with the Derby County boss - who spent 10 years playing alongside the former defender for club and country - being quoted by the Sun as saying: "Rio is a top player, but he is just arrogant. You get paid a lot of money at Man Utd to kick the ball into the net, so just do it. I said, 'Do your job, and give me the ball, give [Cristiano] Ronaldo the ball. Stop standing there messing about'. Rio is a top lad but he sometimes did forget he was a defender."
It prompted Rooney's ex-teammate to respond on his weekly YouTube show, Vibe with FIVE, as Ferdinand explained: "It was at a signing [event], 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."
Quizzed to give an example, Ferdinand replied: "I'd be thinking 'just shoot man'. Don't be doing all these fancy passes, let [Paul] 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 like that."
The 43-year-old then made to sure to clear the air with his old pal, adding: "Listen, we were teammates for 10, 12 years, So, there's a lot of water under the bridge, there's a lot of stuff that's gone on between us. We used to love a laugh, he used to sit next to me in the changing room.
"We meet up and stuff; I went to his premiere the other day, we chat on the phone. So, the relationship has always been good, solid." Ferdinand's co-presenter, Joel Beya, then showed a clip of Rooney speaking at the aforementioned premiere when the Red Devils and England 's all-time top goalscorer made another dig.
"Obviously, Rio was a top player," the Rams manager said on the red carpet. "Quick, good on the ball, good in the air. I'm not so sure about his white suit when he signed for Man United. But no, as a teammate, obviously a joy to play with... I seen Rio's interview a few weeks ago, we used to argue every day in training.
"As a forward when you press the ball and your defenders don't come up with you, it leaves big caps and he very rarely come up, he was a bit lazy, so we used to argue a lot." It seems like the arguing worked, though, as the pair won 12 trophies together and brought United to the top of world football across a glittering decade.
