MANCHESTER UNITED legend Paul Scholes has revealed how desperate Ruud van Nistelrooy was to beat Thierry Henry to win the Premier League Golden Boot award.
The Dutchman was locked in a battle with the Arsenal hero for five seasons between 2001-2006, with the Dutchman said to have checked whether he scored after every game.
Unfortunately for the ex-Real Madrid striker, he only managed to beat Henry to the Golden Boot just once, thanks to his 25-goal haul during the 2002/03 campaign.
French forward Henry however managed to pick up the award on four occasions, with his goalscoring exploits leading Van Nistelrooy to sulk on the team bus and ignore his team-mates.
Speaking to official the Man United podcast, Scholes said: “I played number 10 with Ruud van Nistelrooy for a season and I loved it.
“He’s just a ruthless, ruthless goalscorer. He just lived for scoring goals.
“Whenever he did score or didn’t score, the first thing he would do when we got on the team bus after the game was see if Thierry Henry scored.
“If Thierry Henry had scored he wouldn’t talk to anybody for the full trip home because he was so engrossed in being the leading goalscorer, not just at United but in the league, in the world, everywhere.”
Van Nistelrooy’s hunger to eclipse Henry was also recently discussed by Rio Ferdinand, who stated that the striker would be devastated if the 1998 World Cup winner outscored him.
He said: “You’ve had all these rivalries over the years, great players need great rivalries. They need rivalries. They should be looking at each other.
“Ruud van Nistelrooy used to come in the changing room after a game, trust me, we’re trying to win the league, we’ve beat someone 3-1 or 4-1, he’s scored one goal, he’ll come in and look up to the TV [shake his head] and go ‘ohh’.
“He sits down, [we’d ask] ‘Ruud, are you alright, what’s wrong?’ And he’ll reply, ‘nothing, nothing’.
‘Then someone will go, ‘Thierry has scored two today, Ruud has only scored one, so he’s a goal behind now’.
“And he’s sitting there devastated, and you can see it. I used to sit there and think this guy is mad, we just won 3-1, he’s scored a banger, set someone up as well, and he’s disappointed.”
