Rio Ferdinand recalls ‘mind-boggling’ Woodward decision to leave him ‘numb’ at Man Utd

Rio Ferdinand has recalled the “mind-boggling” decision to axe him from Manchester United as Ed Woodward left him “numb” just minutes after a game.

Ferdinand won six Premier League titles in just over a decade at Old Trafford before his spell came to an abrupt end at the end of the 2013-14 campaign.

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The centre-back ended his career at QPR and has recounted the point at which he was told by Woodward that the Red Devils would no longer be requiring his services.

Speaking on his FIVE YouTube channel, Ferdinand said: “We played Southampton away, and I’d asked a couple of times if I was getting a new deal or not. I was told the manager hasn’t worked out what he’s doing yet and it gets delayed. Vidic knew; he was told he wasn’t going to be renewed, so he got to have a little send-off at the end. I wasn’t even thinking about myself.

“My genuine feeling was the fact that the club had told Vida he wasn’t staying, Patrice Evra wasn’t staying, Ryan Giggs wasn’t staying. There’s three or four big characters leaving at that point. [There are] leaders, captains doing in a squad that needs leadership. And I thought if they’re all going, then there’s a chance I probably will stay because they can’t let us all go. [It would be] mind-boggling if they let us all go, I couldn’t see it. And then we all went!

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“The chief executive at the time, Ed Woodward, came into the