Moyes is sending us mad! Rio insists by keeping team secret

Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand has openly criticised his manager David Moyes' preference to name team line-ups at the last minute.

With United currently sitting 12 points adrift in ninth place in the Premier League, Moyes is under growing pressure to turn his club's season around.

And Ferdinand has not helped his boss's cause by revealing that he preferred predecessor Sir Alex Ferguson's method of giving his players advance notice of whether they would be playing or not.


Ferdinand, 35, told BT Sport: ‘This manager's a bit different in that he doesn't name the team beforehand. You don't really get to know the team. The old manager used to give you a kind of a little bit of an idea if you'd be playing and stuff. 

‘When you know you're playing the intensity goes up a little bit more on match day and that's what you need to try and make sure you're doing even if you don't know you'll be playing to try and get to that intensity you'd be at when you know you're playing. 

‘It's hard... it's hard to do that mentally because you spend a lot of nervous energy thinking "Am I playing?" or "Am I not playing?" and you're just going round in circles in your head and turning into a madman.’
Ferdinand was dropped for the draw at Tottenham on Sunday and also missed the 1-0 defeat to Everton at Old Trafford on Wednesday.

United will be aiming to bounce back from their poor week when they host Newcastle on Saturday.