Last minute team selection driving Rio Ferdinand mad

Selection policy displeases Rio Ferdinand

Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand openly questioned boss Moyes’ team selection policy. Ferdinand has started 11 times so far but was dropped for the draw against Tottenham and loss against Everton.

According to Dailymail, Ferdinand says that previous manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s method of naming the players earlier was preferable as it helped the players to increase their intensity to playing level.

“This manager’s a bit different in that he doesn’t name the team beforehand,” Ferdinand told BT Sport. “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 matchday 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.”

Moyes has however batted the criticism aside.He said,””It would be the same for every player if that was the case because I would think that a lot of the teams do that. But that happened to me and I never felt that way,” the manager said. “We do it in different ways. Sometimes we name it, sometimes we name it late on. I think sometimes a lot of managers leave it so the press don’t get the teams too early.”

Meanwhile Red Devils captain Nemanja Vidic has issued a rallying cry to the players.Despite the results, Vidic believes that the only way forward is to up their performance and believe in themselves to start winning games on a regular basis.

‘I always believe in the squad we have and the work we do. There is no question about that,’ he told MUTV.

‘We have to accept we are not in the position we want and it’s obviously not the best feeling in the world.

‘All the players realise we have to stick together, have to perform better and start winning games.

‘Doing that will raise the confidence and everything will get better.’

Manchester United will be looking to bounce back from the defeat to Everton in the midweek when they face Newcastle United today at 6.15 pm IST.