Former Manchester United defender and current football pundit Rio Ferdinand has revealed how his failure to get along with the likes of John Terry, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard, ‘killed’ England’s so-called’ golden generations.

Ferdinand has claimed that his desire to win trophies with Manchester United outweighed the desires for England which meant he could never open up to his national teammates who were playing for rival Premier League clubs.

Rio told Times magazine: ‘It overshadowed things. It killed that England team, that generation.

‘One year we would have been fighting Liverpool to win the league, another year it would be Chelsea.

‘So I was never going to walk into the England dressing room and open up to Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole, John Terry or Joe Cole at Chelsea, or Steven Gerrard or Jamie Carragher at Liverpool because of the fear they would take something back to their club and use it against us.

‘I didn’t realise that what I was doing was hurting England at the time. I was so engrossed, so obsessed with winning with Man United – nothing else mattered.’

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