Phil Jones has recalled the time he ripped into ex-Manchester United interim boss Ralf Rangnick for taking him off at Liverpool.

The 32-year-old, who departed Old Trafford last year, was plagued by numerous setbacks throughout his career – picking up 23 injuries in total.

Jones has opened up on the time he raged at Rangnick for bringing him offYouTube/High Performance

Once tipped to be the Red Devils’ ‘best ever player’ by Sir Alex Ferguson following his move from Blackburn in 2011, Jones’ injury hell and subsequent inconsistent form in his final years at the club failed to see him reach the heights expected of him.

In his last four seasons at the Theatre of Dreams, Jones was limited to just 13 appearances in all competitions, with just six of those outings coming in the Premier League.

Out of favour under Rangnick in the 2021/22 campaign, the German elected to start Jones away at title-chasing Liverpool in April for just his second top-flight match that term.

And despite failing to put a foot wrong, Jones was subsequently hauled off at half-time with United trailing 2-0 in an eventual 4-0 defeat at Anfield.

It led the 27-cap England international, who retired last month, fuming with Rangnick, where he proceeded to deliver an X-rated rant at him in the dressing room.

The 2013 Premier League champion said on the High Performance podcast: “I’ve never lost my head in a dressing room and I’ve never been emotional enough to lose myself in the dressing room.

“And I think that’s the only time in my career that I completely lost it. I was absolutely raging. Raging. That he humiliated me.

“Humiliated me in front of an Anfield crowd first and foremost, fearsome rivals, and the fans and my family and the players.

“We were 2-0 down at half-time, weren’t great, I don’t think we had a shot on target first half. Nothing was coming off. And I’d actually done alright in the game.

“Considering where I’d been, what I’d been going through, knee and injury-wise.

Jones struggled with injuries at United, resulting in him falling down the pecking orderGetty

Jones has recalled the time he swore at former boss Rangnick in the Anfield dressing roomGetty

“I’ll look back at the game and I’ll highlight anything, I didn’t give the ball away, I was calm under pressure. I’m not saying I was exceptional, but I definitely didn’t deserve to come off at half-time.

“There were far worse players on the pitch that day, I was the easy one to come off. You’re an easy scapegoat.”

He continued: “At half-time I remember Ralf came in and said, ‘I’m going to make a change, Phil’s going to come off.’

“I remember the whole dressing room went like [eyes open] as if to say, ‘Is he bringing Phil off here?’

“I took my boots off and I slammed them on the floor and I said, ‘You’re taking the p*** out of me’. Everyone said, ‘Calm down, calm down.’ I get irate now (thinking about it), it really got to me.

‘I just couldn’t get my head around it. I apologised afterwards, I said, ‘It was out of character for me, I shouldn’t have done that, at that moment that was not what was needed in the dressing room,’ but you can understand I was pretty peeved off.”

Former Tottenham midfielder and talkSPORT co-host Jamie O’Hara commented on Jones’ substitution at the time, where he admitted if he was Jones, he would also call Rangnick out.

He said on The Sports Bar: “If I’m Phil Jones at half-time, I’m digging the gaffer out.

“I’m turning around and saying, ‘Are you winding me up? You’re dragging me after 45 minutes? You’re putting me out there against Liverpool when could you have played me against Norwich last week to get my feet in and give me a game.

“‘You’ve worked on a formation for four days, we’re playing Liverpool and you’re playing me next to [Diogo] Dalot, [Harry] Maguire, [Victor] Lindelof and [Aaron] Wan-Bissaka, and you’re dragging me off at half-time to make me look like it was my fault?’

“I would say, ‘I’ll tell you what, don’t bother picking me again, I’ll see you out, see you later, I’m off.’”

Jones played twice more under Rangnick – cameo appearances off the bench against Chelsea and Brentford – which turned out to be his last games of his professional career.”