"Manchester United tried to break me"

In an interview with 'the Daily Mail', Wilfired Zaha spoke of his time at Manchester United, and how it almost 'broke' him, as well as his need to play in the Champions League. 

Zaha said that then United manager, David Moyes, tried to 'break me in every way possible' and 'destroy my career for no reason.'

Zaha was signed by long time United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, in his last season and was the final signing made by the Scotsman, however, Ferguson's successor, David Moyes had already decided he did not want Zaha in his team, as he was 'not his type of player'.

He looks back on the 'opportunity of a lifetime', 'The chance to play for Manchester United. It was beyond anything I could have hoped for and I treated it that way. I tried my hardest in every training session to show what I could do.' But he then recalls how it went wrong very quickly under Moyes.

'But when he took me out of the Champions League squad and put in Adnan Januzaj, who had never played for the first team, I knew then that this is way bigger than I ever thought and had gone way beyond footballing reasons,' he says. 'When it was not about football or ability, what could I do?'

He also said that the following season, Zaha was 'on trial' at his own club under new boss Louis Van Gaal, with Van Gaal and Ryan Giggs deciding in one training session that he was 'not good enough' despite Wayne Rooney saying to Zaha 'you've trained the best today.'

'Then I go inside, have the meeting with them and they just said: "We just don't think you're good enough". So I said "OK then, I just want to go on loan".' Zaha said on the matter.

Zaha went to Palace on loan, before signing permanently in 2015, after only making 4 appearances for Manchester United.

Zaha insists he is now over what happened but also is hurt by what people say about his time at United: 'Not being given a fair opportunity to play at all and being called a flop is what hurt me even more. How can I be if I wasn't given a fair chance?'

'I see Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele, these types of players, and dribbling wise I'm up there with them but they have been given the platform to perform. 'Every day I wanted to go on Twitter or Instagram and say something but I couldn't. That would be unprofessional.'

The Ivorian does feel he is a more rounded person however after his failed time at United saying; 'I'm better prepared mentally to deal with any situation I'm faced with now. I was a little fish in a big pond. From that grind, going out on loan, nobody believing in me — I've built that self belief in myself.'

'The experience has given me even more and proved that I can do anything if I believe in myself. As long as I continue to work hard and remain dedicated nothing will get in the way of me reaching my goals.'