Featured Image Credit: Bleacher Report & Getty Images
Topics: Ryan Giggs, Manchester United, Arsenal
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Joshua Nair
Topics: Ryan Giggs, Manchester United, Arsenal
Ryan Giggs is a Manchester United legend and is not shy to admit his dislike at some of his former rivals.
The Welshman was more than happy to reveal that he had no interest in being friendly with any of the Arsenal players at the height of the rivalry between the two clubs.
As one of the Premier League's earliest rivalries, the teams went head-to-head at the top of the table, sharing the first 5 Premier League titles of the millennium.
As one of Manchester United's most important players at the time, he has previously said that the tenacity and aggression shown on the pitch was real, and has confessed that there were four specific Gunners players that he disliked the most.
Arsenal's squad at the time, like United's, boasted an array of talent, from Robert Pires to the silky Dennis Bergkamp to the World Cup winning duo of Emmanuel Petit and Patrick Vieira.
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The Welshman has singled all four of these players out as the four he really disliked, declaring his disdain and revealing that he never admitted that they were that good on the pich.
"I didn't like Arsenal. I didn't like Vieira because he was dirty and got away with murder. I didn't like Petit because he had long hair. I didn't like Bergkamp," Giggs revealed to the Daily Mail.
"I didn't like Pires even though when you meet him now he's actually dead nice.
"I wouldn't even look at them, didn't know them and didn't want to. I wouldn't allow myself to rate any of them."
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"Bergkamp? Nah, I told myself he wasn't as good as Eric Cantona. I wasn't really that kind of person. It wasn’t really me. But you had to get that in your head, that intense dislike. It was pure motivation. But deep down we knew."
"They were top-drawer and that rivalry was everything to us. Deeper even than Liverpool at that time."
These words from Giggs go a long way to show how deep the hatred and rivalry was between United and Arsenal in the early 2000s, and how much it meant to the players.