Wayne Rooney fresh from his swansong with the English national team, has revealed he felt embarrassed towards the end of his Manchester United career.
Rooney spent 13 years at Manchester United scoring 250 goals in the process and becoming the highest goal-scorer
Speaking to Sky Sports, he said towards the end of his time at the club, he began to wonder if he was still good enough
“There are times when you doubt yourself as a player, you think: ‘Am I good enough?'” Rooney started
“The time Jose Mourinho left me out of the Manchester United team. There are moments when you do doubt yourself, I believe I was good enough to get back in the team, but I never really got that opportunity.
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“I came on for one minute in the Europa League final, I was about to come on against Southampton in the League Cup final, and in those moments it was embarrassing.
“It was getting to a point where I was embarrassed, I thought: ‘I can’t keep doing this,’ as hard as it was to leave Man United.
“In the Southampton game, Mourinho came to me and said: ‘I want you to lift the trophy.’
“I was like: ‘Well, I didn’t even play in the game.’
“He was persistent with it, and I literally lifted it and moved it on! I just knew… what was I doing? I need to move on and go somewhere else.”
While Rooney has been quite successful in terms of trophies and records broken, he also revealed that this was not the first time he had suffered from lack of confidence.
Rooney spoke of a time when he needed the advice of then coach, Alex Ferguson, to get through a particularly difficult period in 2006-2007 season.
“I think there are periods throughout my career where you do lack a bit in confidence, where you doubt yourself at times. I think there was a time at Manchester United [2006/07 season] where I was scoring goals, and then for some reason I couldn’t score,” Rooney said.
“You’re down, because I love football, love playing football, and after the games I’d go home and watch the games back, to try and see where I’ve gone wrong in certain moments, and I couldn’t work it out. It was so frustrating.
“I couldn’t work out why I wasn’t scoring, why I wasn’t playing as well. Then you end up trying harder, it becomes worse, you feel like you’re just stuck.
“I always remember Sir Alex Ferguson pulling me into his office, and he said: ‘Listen, you’re trying too hard, just keep the game simple. Get the ball, lay it off, get in the box. Your chance will come, you will score and you’ll continue to score.’
“That’s what I did the next game, got the ball, played one or two touch, and I think I scored a hat-trick against Bolton away. I remember sitting there thinking: ‘It can’t be that simple!’ That’s always stuck me when I’ve gone through difficult moments.” Rooney said