{"id":113521,"date":"2025-10-10T14:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T14:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/113521\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T14:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T14:27:08","slug":"rooney-hits-back-at-disrespectful-gerrard-over-egotistical-losers-claim-about-golden-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/113521\/","title":{"rendered":"Rooney hits back at &#8216;disrespectful&#8217; Gerrard over &#8216;egotistical losers&#8217; claim about golden generation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Manchester United legend Wayne Rooney has hit back at former Liverpool star Steven Gerrard after his comments on England\u2019s golden generation.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the Three Lions oozing with talented players in the 2000s, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.football365.com\/england\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>England<\/strong><\/a> failed to get to the final of a major tournament with\u00a0Fabio Capello and Sven-Goran Eriksson failing to get the best out of the players.<\/p>\n<p>David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Paul Scholes, Frank Lampard, Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand, Wayne Rooney, John Terry and Jamie Carragher are just some of the players who were at the disposal of the managers.<\/p>\n<p>Their failure to win anything in the first decade or so of the 2000s was put down to players failing to put club rivalries aside with Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal fighting for the same trophies.<\/p>\n<p>Gerrard recently admitted that was one issue with the former Liverpool midfielder insisting that the England squad back then was full of \u201cegotistical losers\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He said on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.football365.com\/news\/liverpool-gerrard-reignites-feud-diouf-signing-badly-wrong\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Rio Ferdinand\u2019s podcast earlier this week<\/strong><\/a>: \u201cWe were all egotistical losers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.football365.com\/news\/england-player-ratings-wales-saka-gordon-spence-rogers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">England player ratings v Wales: Saka stars; Rogers, Gordon and Spence among big winners<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI watch the telly now and I see Jamie Carragher sitting next to Paul Scholes and they look like they\u2019ve been best mates for 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I see Carragher\u2019s relationship with Gary Neville and they look like they\u2019ve been mates for 20 years. I\u2019m probably more close and friendly with you [Ferdinand] now than I ever was when I played with you for 15 years [for England].<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo why didn\u2019t we connect when we were 20, 21, 22, 23? Was it ego? Was it rivalry?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was down to the culture within England. We weren\u2019t friendly or connected. We weren\u2019t a team. We never at any stage became a real good, strong team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hated it. I didn\u2019t enjoy it. Hated the [hotel] rooms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn my early days, I\u2019d have days where I was down, like low down. Like I\u2019m in this room for seven hours, what am I going to do?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was no social media, we didn\u2019t have a DVD player or anything. Channel 1 to 5 or whatever it was on TV. I used to get low and down.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI used to love the games. I used to love playing for England. I was really proud. I used to enjoy the training sessions but it was 90 minutes a day. And then I was just on my own.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t feel part of a team. I didn\u2019t feel connected with my team-mates, with England.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t feel that with Liverpool. They were the best days of my life. I felt like the staff looked over me, like I felt special. I felt like I couldn\u2019t wait to get there. With England, I just wanted the games and the training sessions and then to be away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORE THREE LIONS COVERAGE ON F365\u2026<\/strong><br \/>\ud83d\udc49\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.football365.com\/news\/opionion-tuchel-justifies-bellingham-decision-silence-keane-two-england-stars-start-world-cup\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Tuchel justifies Bellingham decision to silence Keane as two England stars primed to start at World Cup<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\ud83d\udc49\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.football365.com\/news\/opinion-bellingham-genuine-doubt-world-cup-2026-tuchel-obsession\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Bellingham a genuine doubt for World Cup 2026 after Tuchel quotes New England Patriots documentary<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\ud83d\udc49\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.football365.com\/news\/england-tuchel-arsenal-saka-madueke-good-problem-world-cup\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>England boss Tuchel claims Arsenal pair have given him a \u2018good\u2019 problem ahead of World Cup<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And former England team-mate Rooney thinks Gerrard\u2019s comments are \u201cdisrespectful\u201d as all the players in the Three Lions squads \u201cworked hard\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"noopener nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/p0m6cvwk\" target=\"_blank\">Rooney told his\u00a0BBC podcast<\/a>: \u201cObviously, we didn\u2019t win anything. I wouldn\u2019t quite put it that [Gerrard\u2019s] way but I know what he\u2019s saying. There was a lot of big characters in the dressing room.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say [England squads now have a] better attitude. That\u2019s disrespectful to us as players because we worked hard, we tried. We didn\u2019t quite manage to do it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven when you look back with the players we had could we have done better? We could have but it wasn\u2019t to be.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat you have now is [rival teams\u2019] players training [together] before they go back to pre-season together \u2013 Phil Foden and Marcus Rashford for instance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a different generation. The big thing is the media coverage of it is much better. The players get on better with the media. From the outside that gives a better feeling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt [was] difficult to have that relationship with Liverpool and Man Utd players. It\u2019s easier now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI speak to Steven all the time 1760106428. You can have better relationships now because you can have a beer together and relax more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was fine with everyone, I got on with everyone. I was aware Becks [David Beckham] and Gary Neville and Scholesy [Paul Scholes], you could see they weren\u2019t going to be close to the Liverpool players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut one thing for sure is everyone worked hard for each other. I don\u2019t think that was an issue. We just didn\u2019t manage to get over the line. I didn\u2019t see that at all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester United legend Wayne Rooney has hit back at former Liverpool star Steven Gerrard after his comments on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,4507,794,19,17,1009,20,5,795,132,30183,3802],"class_list":{"0":"post-113521","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-home-page","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-liverpool","14":"tag-manchester-united","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-premier-league","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-steven-gerrard","19":"tag-wayne-rooney"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}