Wayne Rooney says Jose Mourinho was often guilty of treating Manchester United's academy as if it "didn't exist" during his time in charge at Old Trafford.
Mourinho took over from Louis van Gaal in the summer of 2016, with the Dutchman having introduced the likes of Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard into the first-team during his period in charge.
However, that path from the academy into the senior setup seemed to dry up during Mourinho's tenure, with the Portuguese bringing in experienced players who were familiar to him such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Nemanja Matic.
United did win the League Cup and Europa League during Mourinho's first season, but results would quickly trail off and he was sacking acrimoniously in December 2018.
Rooney believes that the former Chelsea, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Tottenham boss, currently at Roma, would have been given more leeway if he'd trusted the young players more.
"The distance between the academy and the first team and the manager, especially under Mourinho, was huge," Rooney said on Sky Sports' Monday Night Football.
"It was almost as if they didn’t exist, if you like.
"Having the relationship they had with Sir Alex [Ferguson] for 26 years and then not being allowed anywhere near the first team… It’s almost like there was a divorce between the first team and the academy."
In contrast to Mourinho, Rooney, the current Derby boss, still holds Ferguson in the highest esteem even if his constant presence at the club can be a little unnerving, just as it was when he left the job in 2013.
"I thought that David Moyes had an impossible task of taking over Sir Alex Ferguson and you could see that even though we won the Premier League that season, you could see everyone was down because they knew that he was gone," he said.
"He is still involved in some way and I think that brings pressure on to any new managers coming in and if you want to manage Manchester United, you have to do it your way and make your own decisions."
On the current search for a manager, he added: "It needs someone to come in with that time to get that club back to where it deserves to be.
"It's not going to happen if you keep changing manager every two years. Ferguson was like the godfather of the club, not just the players but the staff, the academy, he was on top of everything.
"When you lose someone like that from the club, someone else is coming in and it's a massive change."
