Rio Ferdinand has lifted the lid on Ruud van Nistelrooy’s bloody minded mentality at Manchester United and how deep his rivalry with Thierry Henry ran.

Van Nistelrooy was a United player between 2001 and 2006 and become renowned for his prolific goal-scoring, helping United win the league in 2002/03 – Ferdinand’s first full campaign at the club.

The Dutch striker also won the Premier League’s Golden Boot that season and had an intense rivalry with Arsenal talisman Henry.

And Ferdinand has now revealed just how much Van Nistelrooy was focussed on beating the Gunners forward, telling a tale from inside the United dressing room.

“You’ve had all these rivalries over the years, great players need great rivalries. They need rivalries. They should be looking at each other,” said Ferdinand.

“Ruud van Nistelrooy used to come in the changing room after a game, trust me, we’re trying to win the league, we’ve beat someone 3-1 or 4-1, he’s scored one goal, he’ll come in and look up to the TV [shake his head] and go ‘ohh’.

“He sits down, [we’d ask] ‘Ruud, are you alright, what’s wrong?’. And he’ll reply, ‘nothing, nothing’.

“Then someone will go, ‘Thierry has scored two today, Ruud has only scored one, so he’s a goal behind now.’

“And he’s sitting there devastated, and you can see it. I used to sit there and this this guy is mad, we just won 3-1, he’s scored a banger, set someone up as well, and he’s disappointed.”

Ferdinand revealed he was also hit by a similar feeling when trying to win a place in the England side.

He admitted he became fixated on what his centre-back rivals were doing.

“That’s the drive you want, the determination,” he added.

“That’s the single-mindedness you need if you want to be at the top.

“You need that. I used to think that about Nemanja Vidic, John Terry and Sol Campbell with England. I’ve got to be better than them. Whether you are or not you work that out at the end of your career.”