Manchester United’s all-time goalscorer Wayne Rooney has pinpointed what he feels has gone wrong at the club since he left.
Incredible legacy
Rooney spent 13 years at Old Trafford and in that time, became the club’s record goalscorer.
He also won every trophy available to him and helped lead United in arguably their most successful period as a football club.
Anytime United have been successful in their history, they have had great leaders and it was no coincidence that Sir Alex Ferguson’s teams were always full of them.
In Rooney’s time, many players stood up to the plate such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra to name a few.
Lack of leaders
Speaking on the podcast, Rio Ferdinand Presents, Ferdinand asked Rooney to highlight any changes of values he noticed while he was at the club in comparison to the dressing room in the Champions League winning team of 2008.
Rooney retorted, “I left in 2017 and from our group really, there was me and Michael Carrick left really.”
The former striker continued, “then we looked at the players behind us and we were like, who is going to lead this dressing room?”
He did claim that “Youngy (Ashley Young) was there but there was no real grouping and you had Jesse, Rashford, Pogba, fantastic players, really good footballers, but actually, who is going to take responsibility?”
The Englishman also claimed that there was a vacuum of leadership and that there was nobody to “keep that soul in the dressing room and I don’t think since Michael and I left, I don’t think that has been there.”
Many United fans will be sympathetic to this view as in recent times, outside of Bruno Fernandes, few players seem willing to stand up and be counted when the pressure is on.
Matthijs de Ligt has shown promising signs this season so far in this regard and United supporters will hope that Ruben Amorim’s squad overhaul will finally uncover some true leaders in the pack.
“No soul” in the Man Utd dressing room since Rooney and Carrick left?
CC: @rioferdy5, @WayneRooney, #MUFC pic.twitter.com/7vQvoaiqAk
— Rio Ferdinand Presents (@RioMeets) September 24, 2025
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Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
