Wayne Rooney didn't hesitate when naming the three Man Utd players that proved the club was going backwards

Former Manchester United star Wayne Rooney once picked out the three players which signalled the start of the club's deterioration.

United are arguably England's biggest club having won 20 league titles and three European Cups, most of which were won under the guidance of legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson.

However, since Ferguson retired back in 2013 after 26 years in charge, United have never been the same.

Currently, United are 14th in the Premier League after another dismal start to the campaign.

New boss Ruben Amorim has lost four matches in a row and things are not going to get any easier as they are set to travel to Anfield this weekend to take on league leaders Liverpool.

Speaking earlier in the year, Rooney spoke about how the departures and the players who were tasked with filling the void after the Ferguson era made him realise the club was going backwards.

He said on the Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by Sky Bet: "Firstly, at Manchester United, we were losing the core of the team in Ryan Giggs, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, they were all on their last legs, so we were losing that presence in the changing room, which left me and Michael Carrick from our generation.

"Then you’ve got the likes of Jesse Lingard, Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley coming through, who had good careers, but they weren’t the same as the core group we had. Football was changing, the behaviour of players and everything around football was changing and that was a big thing."

Wayne Rooney recently left Plymouth Argyle. Image: Getty

Rooney added: "I remember after the Liverpool game when we got beat at Old Trafford in 2014 under David Moyes, the players were dancing around the changing room the next day at the training ground, playing hip-hop music. I tried taking the speaker out of the room and you can try to control as much as possible, but you can’t really."

Lingard was the most successful of the trio at United. He won the FA Cup, Carabao Cup and Europa League before leaving in 2022.

Welbeck departed for Arsenal in 2014 and is still in the Premier League with Brighton. Cleverley, meanwhile, retired in 2023 due to injury.