Jaap Stam has accused Alex Ferguson of treating him like "a piece of meat" and claimed Old Trafford captain Roy Keane agrees with him.
The former United centre-half was surprisingly sold to Lazio for Stg£16 million soon after he made a number of revelations in his autobiography, including that Ferguson ‘tapped him up’ when he was with PSV Eindhoven.
Stam told a British Sunday newspaper: "Everyone says the power is with the players but that is not true.
"As a player you are nothing more than a piece of meat, we're nothing more than cattle.
"I had a conversation with Roy Keane about it and he agreed, saying 'They sold you like a cow'.
"The fact is he sold me behind my back. I didn't know anything about it. He fired me because he had problems about his own reputation.
"He shouted at me 'What must the people think when they read your book and they read I told players they had to dive and that I flatten tables in the dressing room?'
"I didn't understand his argument at all because I only told the truth. And remember Ferguson had his own book and wrote similar stories about Gordon Strachan and Brian Kidd."
Stam, 29, has remained in contact with some of his former Old Trafford team-mates. He added: "Some of the players have called me but nobody from the management or the board of directors has made a single phone call.
"And that's how I now know that even a big club like Manchester United can be very small."