If you needed any further evidence that football has been consumed by money and power in recent years, you need look no further than Wayne Rooney's monster new deal at Manchester United back in February. The United striker penned a new contract worth a staggering £300,000 at the turn of the New Year, making him the highest-paid player in the Premier League. Back in 1992, when the Premier League was first conceived, five-figure weekly salaries seemed mind-boggling, but the six-figure sum Rooney is now collecting is being earned by an ever-increasing number of stars in this modern day age of monetary madness. This is the world we live in, where players are allowed to pick up inordinate sums for the simple pleasure of kicking around a bag of air once or twice a week. That might be an easier pill to swallow for us workaday schmucks were it not for these pampered players throwing temper tantrums, bickering at each other, complaining about being on the bench and generally thinking they're god's gift to the world. And as we look again at United, a series of their stars have been guilty of these niggling character flaws over the past few years, having acted like pure prima donnas. For the purposes of this article, a 'prima donna' is defined as a "very temperamental person with an inflated view of their own talent or importance". With that definition in mind, we can think of a large number of United players (and even managers) past and present who fit that unflattering description. So without further ado, click 'next' to find out who makes our list of Man Utd's 10 biggest prima donnas.
Joseph is an accredited football journalist and has interviewed nearly all of the current 20 Barclay's Premier League managers. He is also a correspondent for Bleacher Report and has written for Caught Offside and Give Me Football.
