Gary Neville says the one time he felt Wayne Rooney "let himself down" at Manchester United was when, in late 2010, he publicly announced that he wanted to leave the club.
"We were walking into the changing room, his teammates were playing a game, don't do that to us, take your shit somewhere else," Neville says in a new Amazon Prime documentary titled Rooney.
"It's on Sky Sports News, beamed into us. It literally hit us like a ton of bricks because this wasn't him. [We were thinking] 'This is not him. He couldn't do that. He would never damage his teammates'.
"That was the only time that I ever thought he let himself down.
"I was surprised that he survived that. I thought that was it, he's done. I think it damaged him with the fans at the time. The idea was he was going to [Manchester] City."
At the time, Rooney said he wanted to leave as the club had not allayed worries which he had about the future of the Manchester United squad.
Gary Neville: 'It takes real guts and courage to do what Wayne Rooney did'
Remember the name: @WayneRooney
The goal. The commentary. The memories.
𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲, a documentary on his life and career, available now on Prime Video 📺 pic.twitter.com/Ht6ZnjBmSr
— Amazon Prime Video Sport (@primevideosport) February 11, 2022
"We sold Tevez and then we sold Ronaldo," Rooney says in the documentary.
"So, I was the one player left with a high profile. I went into Alex Ferguson's office, and I said to him, 'What's the plan here? At the minute we've brought in two young English players who are unproven'. I remember Alex Ferguson's response was, 'Get out of my office'.
"They were offering me a contract of £200,000 a week. It would have been quite easy for me to say, 'Five years, £200,000 a week, let me sign it now'. But I wanted success on the pitch. That means more to me.
"If you look five years down the line from that meeting, Alex Ferguson knew where the club was going, and he got out of there as quick as he could. They're still picking up the pieces now."
Looking back now, Neville admires Rooney for confronting Alex Ferguson.
"I think that takes real guts and courage to do what he did," Neville says.
"None of us would have done it. Not in a million years, going into the manager and saying, 'Who are you signing? You better sign some good players or else I'm off'. We'd have been turfed out the door quicker than we finished the sentence.
"You look at the likes of Robson, Cantona, Roy Keane, Rooney - these were the personalities that could do it. They were basically that great a player, and they had that bit of an edge to them, that they would do those types of things."
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