I didn't ask to leave - Rooney

London - Manchester United captain Wayne Rooney claims that he did not submit a transfer request shortly before Alex Ferguson retired as manager in May 2013.

Rooney came close to leaving United in October 2010 and Ferguson has alleged that the England striker also asked to leave the club two years ago.

Rooney sat out Ferguson's final two games as United manager, but in a new documentary, he says that he never explicitly asked to leave Old Trafford.

"I went in to see him (Ferguson) and just said, 'If you are not going to play me, it might be better for me to move on,'" Rooney says in Wayne Rooney: The Man Behind The Goals, which will be broadcast by the BBC next week.

"Then, all of a sudden, it was all over the press that I had put a transfer request in, which I never did. I don't know what happened and why that came out that way."

Rooney, 29, admits that his relationship with Ferguson was occasionally strained, but describes the Scot, who is now a United director, as "the best manager of all time".

Other revelations in the documentary include an admission that the burly striker wooed his wife Coleen, who is pregnant with their third child, by writing her poetry during the early days of their relationship.