Veron: I felt like a lunatic

Juan Sebastian Veron has admitted he "seemed like a lunatic" as he walked alone at night trying to come to terms with his disappointing first season at Manchester United.

Veron has already called his first season at United a "catastrophe": the club failed to win a trophy and Veron, a £28.1m (€45m) buy from Lazio, took a lot of the flak.

Argentina's failure to qualify for the knockout stage of the World Cup compounded Veron's disappointment.

He told the Daily Mirror: "I liked to walk alone at night. I seemed like a lunatic, but in this time I had a chance to think about what had happened.

"Walking calmly gave me a chance to take into account other things, like knowing who was on my side and who was supporting me.

"I don't know if the pain of last season and the problems could, one day, return. I do know there are things in football that are difficult to digest.

"But with my girlfriend and friends, I didn't have a great deal of communication about it.

"Luckily my children are young and didn't really know what was happening. I spoke little, I isolated myself and tried to stay alone with my thoughts.

"I wanted to separate these problems, and think they were only sport.

"It was hard, but not as hard as someone who has to get up at five o'clock in the morning to look for work."

Veron was particularly low following the 1-0 defeat to England in the World Cup.

He added: "I cried all night. I maintain we did not fail, we just didn't give a good account of ourselves.

"I haven't spoken in detail with my team-mates about what happened, but I don't think we deserved to lose.

"England were not better than us, but Argentina did not play - that we know only too well. We could have drawn but I never thought we wouldn't go through, although I felt we were not playing as well as we had in qualifying.

"I always maintained the faith we would do well at the World Cup but personally, I played badly. The prize was great and there was so much to win.

"I didn't see any of it after that. For me the World Cup finished when we went out against Sweden."