Former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand has been highly critical of David Moyes's approach to management during his time at Old Trafford.

The Scotsman was sacked by the Red Devils in April after overseeing the club's fall from champions to seventh in the Premier League last season.

Ferdinand spent his final year at United under Moyes before moving on to Queens Park Rangers on a free transfer.

In his autobiography #2 sides, which is being serialised by The Sun, Ferdinand said: "Moyes's innovations mostly led to negativity and confusion. The biggest confusion was over how he wanted us to move the ball forward.

"Often he told us to play it long. Some players felt they kicked the ball long more than at any time in their career. Sometimes our main tactic was the long, high, diagonal cross. It was embarrassing. In one home game against Fulham we had 81 crosses! I was thinking, why are we doing this? Andy Carroll doesn't play for us!

"The whole approach was alien. Other times Moyes wanted lots of passing. He'd say, 'today I want us to have 600 passes in the game. Last week it was only 400'. Who cares? I'd rather score five goals from 10 passes."

The ex-England international also revealed in his book that Moyes announced his decision to drop Ferdinand from the side that played Bayern Munich in the Champions League in public.

"It killed me," said Ferdinand. "Inside I wanted to scream and grab him. I'm a team player, so I just had to bite my tongue and stand there. But it was probably the worst single moment I ever had at United. I'd never been dropped for a big game like that - and to drop that on me in front of everybody."

Moyes was replaced by Louis van Gaal, who recorded his first competitive win as United manager with Sunday's 4-0 thrashing of Queens Park Rangers.