During his 20 year spell as a Premier League player, Paul Scholes came to understand a lot of things – pinging diagonal passes behind full-backs, long-range volleys from dropping balls outside the box and the beautiful art of the mistimed challenge.
But one thing the former Manchester United midfielder can’t get to grasp with is the modern phenomenon of players taking selfies in the dressing room
In his column for The Independent, Scholesy says: “In my world the dressing room was sacrosanct. The only time anyone was permitted to take pictures in there was when we had won a trophy.
“Unless I am wrong, Arsenal only got three points for beating City. It wasn’t the European Cup final.”
He adds: “And if you haven’t won a trophy to show off, what exactly is it about these pictures that people are expected to be interested in?”
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Scholes was speaking in the wake of the above Arsenal selfie that was posted by Aaron Ramsey after their victory over Manchester City that was also blasted by Sky Sports’ Jamie Carragher, another former player that you’d lump into the “old school” category.
And while he does sound a bit curmudgeonly, he insists that honouring the privacy of the dressing room was hammered into him by his manager, Alex Ferguson.
He writes: “In my final couple of years at United we had one player, new to the team and young, who posted a picture from the dressing room on Instagram or Twitter.
“I won’t embarrass him by naming him because that too would contradict the rules about what stays private. Safe to say, the manager went ballistic and the player never did it again.”
We’ll admit we were dying to find a contradiction in the current BT Sport pundit’s claims by searching for some dressing room shots of him in which he wasn’t celebrating trophy but we were met with a resounding:
The former England international claimed that even the manager respected the fact that the dressing room was strictly a place for the players.
“If you want a measure of how private a place the dressing room was when I was growing up at Manchester United, consider this: even Sir Alex Ferguson would knock before coming into the dressing room at the Cliff, the old training ground.
“The dressing room is for the players, and the players only.”
The only problem for Arsenal is that if Arsene Wenger knocks on the dressing room door before entering, he gives Wojciech Szczęsny enough time to put out his fag.
