Former Manchester United and England defender Rio Ferdinand has said that his old team-mate Wayne Rooney has the body of a 40-year-old.

Ferdinand, aged 38 and now retired, said that the extra demands Rooney made of his body throughout his career have prematurely aged him.

Speaking to the Express, Ferdinand said: "He is probably in a 40-year-old athlete's body. Most of those games he has played, his stats showed he had probably out-run everybody in the team - as he was always telling us!"

Rooney, who has made 623 senior club appearances and won 119 caps for England, has increasingly struggled for form in recent seasons.