Rio Ferdinand, the former Manchester United star, once called Wayne Rooney to express his frustration over Jesse Lingard and Paul Pogba's dance videos on Instagram during a period when the team was underperforming in the Premier League.
Ferdinand, a key player in United's last title-winning squad that clinched the league in 2012/13, which marked Sir Alex Ferguson's final season as manager, had an illustrious career at Old Trafford from 2002 to 2014. As one of the world's top-rated centre backs, he was accustomed to success, securing six Premier League titles and hoisting the Champions League trophy in 2008.
Now serving as a football pundit, Ferdinand has observed a decline in standards both on and off the pitch, with United failing to secure any Premier League titles under a succession of high-profile managers. Rooney, Ferdinand's former colleague and another United legend, stayed at the club for three more seasons after Ferdinand's departure, witnessing first-hand the dramatic shift in the club's culture.
In a recent episode of the 'Rio Presents' podcast, Ferdinand recounted a conversation with then-captain Rooney and another former United teammate, Phil Jones. He remembered questioning Rooney about some players' social media behaviour.
All three agreed that such displays would not have been acceptable during United's golden era.
Jones, reflecting on the transformation in the Red Devils dressing room, began by stating: "Back then, when you look at the dressing room we had... we had so many incredible, powerful leaders that wouldn't let anything get in the way of the team's performance and the team winning.
"That winning mentality was so strong and powerful that no one that came in could disrupt that.
"I think now players perhaps lack the ability to call people out anymore and the power to tell them, 'that's not what we do at this football club... don't come in here and start behaving like that, that doesn't work here'. I'm not suggesting that happens every single day at the club but if we lost a match, we'd have a meeting the next day, not even with the coaches.
"The leaders would be saying, 'this is not good enough' after one loss. "When asked about when this culture started to change, Ferdinand indicated: "I'll tell you when it changed, from the outside at least.
"I rang Wazza [Wayne Rooney] when I saw Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard dancing on Instagram when we were sixth in the league. ""I rang Wazza and asked, 'what's happening here?
"How are you allowing this? 'And he replied, 'you can't say nothing man, it's not the same anymore'.
"He said, 'it's not just those two, there would be a big group looking at me like I'm mad if I said anything'."
Jones quipped: "Can you imagine that happening in our dressing room - You would get torched.".
The pair, famed for their choreographed goal celebrations, often faced backlash as they danced their way through United's rocky performances. Despite Pogba and Lingard's departure in 2022, the Red Devils are still facing an uphill battle, languishing at 14th in the league under new boss Erik ten Hag's leadership.