Ferdinand hid back injury from Ferguson

Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand has revealed he tried to hide the extent of his back problem from Sir Alex Ferguson despite being left struggling to walk due to the injury.

Ferdinand needed pioneering treatment to recover from the problem and the England star admits it took him a long time to come clean to Ferguson about just how bad the problem was because he was so desperate to keep playing.

The turning point was United’s 2-0 defeat to Liverpool in October, when Fernando Torres took advantage of Ferdinand’s problems to surge past him and score a crucial goal.

Ferdinand told the News of the World: “The day after a game I would waddle into the club like a duck, bent over like an old hunchback.

“I would be hobbling around, unable to train for four or five days. I would be OK to play the next game, but I must have missed 60-70 percent of training.

“If I’m honest, I didn’t make it clear to the gaffer and the club physios that my injury was that serious.

“I just had an incredible desire to play football and had never had to deal with an injury of this scale before.

“But I was summoned into the manager’s office after the Liverpool defeat.

“He told me: ‘Last season, Torres would not have scored that goal against you’. As soon as he said that, you sit up and take notice.

“When the manager tells you something like that it hits home. So we made a decision to rest it completely before I could return to the team.”