Rooney blast Mourinho for the way he treated Man Utd Academy players

Former Man Utd star Wayne Rooney has fired at former coach Jose Mourinho over how he handled the club’s academy players when he was at Old Trafford.

Mourinho was at Old Trafford in 2016 and was there for two and a half years, during which Rooney was the captain at Old Trafford during the Portugal international first season at the club.

Mourinho came and changed the usual culture of bringing academy players into the first team.

However, the Portuguese left the club after falling out with the board, and Rooney noted that the former Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Chelsea boss was guilty of only focusing on the first team, which made everyone else at the club feel like they didn’t exist.

“The distance between the academy and the first team and the manager, especially under Mourinho, was huge,’ Rooney said on Monday Night Football.

“It was almost as if they didn’t exist, if you like.

“Having the relationship they had with Sir Alex [Ferguson] for 26 years and then not being allowed anywhere near the first team… It’s almost like there was a divorce between the first team and the academy.”