Friends of Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand have expressed their frustration at the experienced stopper's reluctance to take part in the arduous early work in a 1,500-piece jigsaw puzzle.
Ferdinand and a group of friends initially sat down with a testing jigsaw of Westminster Abbey last night with the entire team seeming to be fully committed to the task at hand.
But Ferdinand's teammates were left flummoxed when the 34-year-old hurried off during the testing early stages of the puzzle, asserting that he would be 'back to help finish it off'.
"Of course there's some bitterness," an anonymous puzzler told FourFourTwo.
"Those first few hours are sheer hell out there and you all need to pull together. It was a big letdown to see Rio abandon us when we needed his keen eye for angles the most."
Various critics have questioned Ferdinand's hunger when confronted with the sometimes less than glorious realities of completing a sizeable jigsaw.
"None of us want to be spending several hours putting together entirely blue pieces to make the sky. But the payoff for that is the adrenaline rush of putting that final piece in the North Transept," our source continued.
Many felt that Ferdinand was somewhat fortunate to receive the invitation to create a 1,500-piecer having rarely made anything larger than 300 pieces in recent months, which makes his decision even more shocking.
"Sure, Rio used to be able to assemble a border for fun, but these days we often see him trying to mangle two non-connecting pieces together," the irate puzzleman concluded.
"The saddest thing is that we still need him at all. You would've thought we'd be able to find someone better by now."
