Wayne Rooney has revealed that a cabal of senior players 'controlled the Manchester United dressing room' to ensure new signings didn't upset the highly successful team dynamic.
The striker, along with Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand, were trusted by Sir Alex Ferguson to keep the squad on the right track as they chased silverware at home and abroad.
Rooney, who now plays in the United States with DC United, scored 253 goals in 559 appearances for United, winning five Premier League titles, the FA Cup, three League Cups and the Champions League.
And though Ferguson signed superstars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez, Nani and Dimitar Berbatov during his last decade at the club, none of them were allowed to get bigger than their boots.
'That would never be allowed to happen,' Rooney told the Men In Blazers TV show on NBCSN.
'The likes of Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, Rio Ferdinand, myself - players who had Man U in them and wanted the best for that club - would never allow anyone to mess that up.
'We controlled the dressing room ourselves. Alex Ferguson didn't really need to control that. The players had the trust of the manager to do that themselves.'
United are struggling this season under Jose Mourinho with one recurring criticism being that their style of play isn't as attacking as it was during the Ferguson era.
But Rooney disagrees: 'People talk about our team - especially in relation to Manchester United now - and say it was attack, attack, attack. But we actually weren't.
'A lot of games we played on the counter-attack, drew teams onto us and then broke with pace. We did it to Arsenal.
'It wasn't all 'let's just go out and attack.' It was a bit more calculated against certain opponents which brought the best out of myself.
'We had the team built to hit teams on the break and we were devastating at it.'
United travel to Mourinho's former club Chelsea in the Premier League on Saturday lunchtime.
