Rooney reveals drinking habits and playing with anger

Wayne Rooney has revealed the difficulty he had adapting to life as a Premier League superstar, which led to locking himself away to drink and "raging" on the football pitch. Rooney, Manchester United and England's record goalscorer, is releasing a documentary on Amazon Prime. And the now Derby County manager has discussed all aspects of his career, including how he struggled to deal with the pressure of playing for United.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Rooney said becoming a top player at a young age was "something I wasn't prepared for" after growing up in his council estate in Croxteth, "always getting into fights and arguments".

"It took a long time for me to get used to that and figure out how to deal with it," Rooney told the newspaper. "It was like being thrown in somewhere where you are just not comfortable. That was tough for me. I had made a lot of mistakes when I was younger, some in the press and some not in the press, whether that's fighting or whatever. For me to deal with that, deal with stuff that was in the newspapers, deal with the manager at the time, deal with family at the time, was very difficult.

"In my early years at Manchester United, probably until we had my first son, Kai, I locked myself away really. I never went out. There were times you'd get a couple of days off from football and I would actually lock myself away and just drink, to try to take all that away from my mind."

On the pitch, it meant playing with anger – although Rooney suggests that made him a better player.