Rio Ferdinand has lifted the lid on the David Moyes era at Manchester United and described some of the tactics used by the former Old Trafford manager as 'embarrassing', in comments taken from his new book "#2Sides".
Ferdinand returned to Old Trafford on Sunday for the first time since his 12-year stay at the club ended last May, only to see his QPR side beaten 4-0 by a revived United. Yet it was his comments surrounding Moyes that will dominate the agenda after that game.
No United player has spoken out against Moyes in the months since he was sacked as Old Trafford boss, but Ferdinand climbed over that wall of silence with a highly critical assessment of the Scot's tactics during his troubled ten-month reign as the club's manager.
"He tried to impose a vision, but never seemed to be completely clear what that vision should be," writes Ferdinand in his book that is being serialised by the Sun. "Unintentionally, he created a negative vibe where, with Fergie, it had always been positive. He'd slowly lost us. I didn't enjoy playing under him.
"Sometimes our main tactic was the long, high, diagonal cross. It was embarrassing. In one home game against Fulham we had 81 crosses! I was thinking, why are we doing this? Andy Carroll doesn't play for us!
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"Moyes's innovations led to negativity and confusion. It was always how to stop the other side. Moyes set us up not to lose. We'd been accustomed to playing to win."
Ferdinand also revealed how Moyes dropped him for last season's Champions League quarterfinal clash against Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena, after the coach told his veteran centre-back in front of his teammates that he was leaving him out because he wanted more pace in his defensive line.
"It killed me," added Ferdinand. "Inside I wanted to scream and grab him. I'm a team player, so I just had to bite my tongue and stand there.
"It was probably the worst single moment I ever had at United. I'd never been dropped for a big game like that - and to drop that on me in front of everybody."