Rio Ferdinand has compared Mason Greenwood to fellow Manchester United great Wayne Rooney after watching his ‘joke’ performance against Leeds United on Saturday.
The 19-year-old scored on the opening day of the season as The Reds won the match 5-1.
Bruno Fernandes netted a hat-trick and Fred scored the final goal to seal three points.
Despite the efforts of others, including Paul Pogba who registered four assists, Ferdinand can see why Greenwood attracted a lot of attention.
He also admitted he sees a bit of Rooney in the teenager.
Rooney became the club’s all-time record scorer with 253 goals after representing United between 2004 and 2017.
Ferdinand said the following on his very own FIVE YouTube channel: “I saw some of the stuff in that game where I know some of the coaches and people behind the scenes at Man United are saying this isn’t a surprise.
“It has just been waiting to happen in the first team and his body is catching up.
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“He knows what he needs to do, but Wayne Rooney when he came into the first team was a man already.
“You can see with Mason Greenwood he has built into that frame of being a first team player and at the weekend, Graeme Souness was right, he was one of the stand-out players.
“Some of the movement, the ball retention, shrugging people off and the finish was a joke.”
Ferdinand added: “He ran half of the pitch and I always say to be able to run half the pitch and finish like that, to do something like that… I think if he had gone to the Euros, he would have had a massive impact off the bench.
“He just knows how to score goals at any level.”
