Ex-Manchester United defender Phil Jones has opened up on the emotional struggle he endured while spending so much of his career out injured. The 32-year-old played 13 matches in his final four seasons before hanging up his boots for good in August.

Jones was hot property when he broke into the Blackburn Rovers first-team as a teenager but a torn meniscus at 18 years old proved to be the start of his injury nightmare.

The Preston-born centre-back played over 200 matches for United but the vast majority came in his first few seasons. And when he did play towards the latter stages of his Old Trafford spell, the excruciating pain in his right knee was eased by painkillers and steroids.

Jones told The Sun that his ordeals had put him through ‘mental trauma’, persuading him to seek help from a psychologist and a therapist. He added: “As footballers you have to put this mask on. You get paid a lot of money so you are not allowed to have feelings or emotions.

“The physical injuries made me mentally weak at times. Obviously people will ask, ‘Why is he is always injured?’ as though they think that I wake up one day and think, ‘Oh, yeah, I fancy being injured today’.

“But my coping mechanism was to be silent, put my guard up, my shield up around with my really close family. I wouldn’t even really communicate with my friends that well.”

Jones largely stayed away from social media to avoid the abuse aimed in his direction. He added: “Anybody who tells you that it doesn’t (bother them) is lying.”

The Englishman reportedly banked more than £40million in wages during his stint at Old Trafford, with a significant chunk of that paid out by the club during his lengthy injury absences. But Jones has hit back at the notion that he did not earn it.

“People say, ‘You shouldn’t take that money then’,” he continued. “If they only knew what I was doing behind the scenes to get right. Flip that on its head and say, ‘I’ll tell you what then, what I’ll do is I’ll take the money away from you and see if you go back into work’. Everybody’s got to earn money.”

Jones retired from playing at the tender age of 32 and described it as a ‘relief’. He has since enjoyed spells coaching United’s youth teams as he works towards a new chapter in coaching.