For associated material with this story, check it out on my website! I also have stories about Thierry Henry's Handball, Pirlo's penalty, and many other stories on Manchester United.

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While Wayne Rooney is rightly a Manchester United legend, there are some fans that will never forgive what they felt was an episode in which he “held the club for ransom” in October of 2010. For as much glory as the “scouser that looked like Shrek” has brought the club, the week long saga which saw Sir Alex Ferguson publicly tell the world his star striker wanted out of the club has cast long shadows - against not just Rooney, but his teammates as well.

Gary Neville

“If a player wants to go elsewhere, that’s his concern. I’ll never understand someone who wants to leave United, but that’s their issue. But with Wayne it wasn’t just the decision but the way it was handled that was so bad. ”

Sir Alex Ferguson

“The phrase he had used was that he didn’t think the club were ambitious enough. We had won the League Cup and the League the year before and reached the final of the Champions League.”

PART ONE: “Respect this club.”

The story actually begins much sooner than that week in October of 2010.

Sir Alex Ferguson

“I knew there was something bugging him at the 2010 World Cup. I could see it.”

Gary Neville

“England and Wayne had had a poor World Cup in South Africa and he was being attacked professionally and personally. He didn’t look happy in himself.”

Sir Alex Ferguson

“he was in a strange mood in South Africa. ‘Nice to see your home fans boo you,’ he said into a TV camera after England’s goalless draw with Algeria in Cape Town. England went out in the second round and there were no goals in four matches for Wayne.”

After another listless English performance on the international stage, and after enduring constant hounding by the press over his personal life, Rooney came back to United after the 2010 World Cup as very much damaged goods.

Sir Alex Ferguson

“On 14 August 2010 Wayne informed us that he would not be signing a new contract at United. This was a shock, as the plan had always been to sit down after the World Cup to discuss a new contract.”

According to Rooney he felt the club was slipping behind by not showing ambitions, and should have been pursuing players such as Mesut Özil. Ferguson felt like the words truly weren’t Rooney’s, and were things he had been told to say.

Sir Alex Ferguson

“My response was to ask Wayne: ‘When have we not challenged for the League in the last 20 years? How many European finals have we been to in the last three or four years?’ [I told him] it was none of his business who we should have gone for. I told him it was his job to play and perform. My job was to pick the correct teams. And so far I had been getting it right.”

While negotiations would be ongoing, Ferguson had one last word for Rooney.

Sir Alex Ferguson

”Just remember one thing: respect this club.”

Rooney meanwhile had a typically slow start to his season. He would soon find himself sitting on the bench, or not making the team for multiple matches. Ferguson contended that he was keeping Rooney out of games due to either fitness or personal issues. However after being taken off during a 2-2 draw with Bolton, and then being left out of games at Valencia and Sunderland Rooney apparently had enough, and took to the press.

Wayne Rooney

“No, I’ve had no ankle problems all season. I don’t know [why Ferguson said I’m injured.]”

Rumors immediately start swirling, and by Monday the 18 of October, every British newspaper and broadcaster is reporting that Rooney is on his way out after contract negotiations had completely broken down.

Ferguson was forced to react, and gives a press conference that sent chills down the spine of every Manchester United fan, and player in which he confirms that Rooney wants to leave.

Gary Neville

“The boss’s performance at that press conference when he talked about Wazza was unbelievable. My jaw hit the floor when I switched on the TV…you could also see the defiance. He wouldn’t stand back and let United be picked apart by any player, however talented. It was like watching one of the manager’s team talks played out in public.”

With the laundry now out in public, Rooney shocked his teammates by putting out a statement himself just two hours before the team was to play Burasapor, acknowledging what Ferguson had said was true…while for the first time making his thoughts on the clubs lack of ambition public.

Wayne Rooney

“During those meetings in August I asked for assurances about the continued ability of the club to attract the top players in the world…For me its all about winning trophies – as the club has always done under Sir Alex. Because of that I think the questions I was asking were justified.”

Gary Neville

“It would have been a bad thing to say at any time but it was madness to be putting it out an hour before a big game. He knew there was a match on, and so did his representatives. He’s a good lad, Wayne, not a troublemaker, so we were dumbfounded. I stood stunned in the dressing room. ‘What idiot has allowed him to put that out?”

Ferguson was livid, and according to all involved gave one of the most impressive pre-match talks of his career. After the game, Ferguson immediately took Rooney to task in his press conference.

Sir Alex Ferguson

“There’s nothing wrong with Manchester United, not a thing wrong with it. So we’ll carry on…What we’re seeing now in the media is disappointing because we’ve done everything we can for Wayne Rooney, since the minute he’s come to the club. We’ve always been there as a harbour for him. Any time he’s had a problem, we’ve given advice. But you do that for all your players, not just Wayne Rooney. That’s Manchester United. This is a club which bases all its history and its tradition on the loyalty and trust between managers and players and the club. That goes back to the days of Sir Matt Busby. That’s what it’s founded on.”

PART TWO: “The biggest mistake of my football career”

For a saga that had blown up with such a quickness, it was almost as shocking for how quickly it ended. With everything playing out in public, the Glazers stepped in and offered to make Rooney one of the highest paid players in the country, which he immediately accepted. The news stunned the football world which not even 36 hours prior had seen Ferguson and Rooney launching nukes at each other in the press.

Gary Neville

“Patrice Evra told Wazza he must have crapped himself when he saw the gang of United fans outside his house. ‘So you shit yourself, eh Wayne, when you saw the balaclavas?”

Sir Alex Ferguson

“The next day he came in to apologise. I told him: ‘It’s the fans you should be apologising to.”

Gary Neville

“The next morning, I saw Wayne at the training ground. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’m staying.’ ‘Fuck off! Really? Well, if you are, I think you’re going to have to apologise.”

Sir Alex Ferguson

“There was a mixed reaction from the players. Some were put out; others were not bothered by him. It was a sorry episode for Wayne because it portrayed him as a money man who had dropped his grievance the minute his salary was raised. That’s the way it was presented, but I don’t think it was Wayne’s intention to make it a financial issue. It blew over quickly. With the fans, however, there was a residue of mistrust.”

Ferguson was also incensed to learn that Rooney was due to make more than he was making over the incident.

Sir Alex Ferguson

'When the Glazers and David Gill agreed to a big increase in Wayne Rooney's salary, they wanted to know how I felt. I told them I did not think it fair that Rooney should earn twice what I made and Joel Glazer immediately said: 'I totally agree with you but what should we do? It was simple. We just agreed that no player should be paid more than me. We agreed in less time than it takes to read the previous sentence.'

Rooney would later look back on the saga with an unkind eye, but would further cast doubt on exactly what the entire saga had been about.

Wayne Rooney

In September 2010 my ankle puts me on the sidelines…And that’s when I make the biggest mistake of my football career. In October, I release a statement which publicly questions my happiness at Old Trafford. Am I better off elsewhere?…The only person who really knows what’s going on in there is me, but even I’m not sure what I want. Then the manager has his say. ’Sometimes you look in a field and you see a cow and you think it’s a better cow than the one you have in your own field. And it never really works that way’. He’s saying the grass isn’t always greener, and he’s right. I like what’s in my field. I’m wrong. United want the same as me: trophies, success, to be the best.”

The episode would sorrow Rooney’s relationship with the fans, despite his heroic bicycle kick a few short months after the saga.

Sir Alex Ferguson

“He was fine so long as he was scoring, but in fallow times there was perhaps a stirring of the old resentment. Players can underestimate the depth of feeling for a club among fans…Some of them have stood behind the club for 50 years. They’re there for life. So when a player is deemed to have shown disloyalty to a club, there is no messing about with them.”

Most of those around the club believe that Rooney was being led around by his agent during this time period, and it was affecting him.

Gary Neville

“Genuinely I was happy that he’d made the best decision of his life. He’d made a mistake and misread the situation, but you had to wonder about the advice he was getting.”

Rio Ferdinand

”He was more aware of his image. The edge had gone and he was playing differently…I think someone had spoken to him. Probably his agent…that told him it would be better for him going forward…he lost that for maybe 18 months or two years.”

The episode would also permanently fracture relations between the two, with another public fallout happening less than three years later at the end of Ferguson’s last season in charge of Manchester United.

As always with Ferguson, the truth of the matter which isn’t public record becomes a game of he said, she said. Ferguson and Rooney differ over what happened before their latest public fallout.

Sir Alex Ferguson

"I don't think Wayne was keen to play [against Swansea], simply because he's asked for a transfer.”

Wayne Rooney

"I went in to see him and just said, 'If you are not going to play me then it might be better for me to move on.’ Then, all of a sudden, it was all over the press that I had put a transfer request in, which I never did. I don't know what happened, why that came out that way.”

Sir Alex Ferguson

“He came into my office the day after we won the League and asked away.”

The bad blood from Ferguson’s side would seemingly continue to linger long after his retirement, as he declined to appear in a documentary on Rooney’s life in 2015.

Wayne Rooney

”That's part of football. I'm not the only person who had differences with Sir Alex Ferguson, but I can still sit here and say he was the greatest manager of all time. I still see Sir Alex quite a bit at games and he travels away to European games with us. It's not that we don't like each other. We just had differences.”

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All excerpts come from either press conferences or from Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United and My Autobiography by Sir Alex Ferguson, My Decade in the Premier League by Wayne Rooney, and Red: My Autobiography by Gary Neville.