Manchester United defender Chris Smalling insists going vegan can help his form this season.

Smalling missed out on World Cup selection this summer and is being linked with Wolves this week, but insists a vegan diet has been good for him.

"My wife has been vegan for a few years and was often trying to persuade me," explained the 28-year-old United defender. "She cooks a lot at home, and half the time I was eating vegan anyway.

"After a while, I started to cut out red meat. One of the reasons was because it causes quite a lot of inflammation, and I had tendinitis in my knee, which quite a lot of footballers get.

"Red meat causes a lot of that inflammation and when I was cutting down, the tendinitis started to go. It used to be quite a problem in terms of all warm-ups because getting going was a bit of a nightmare. I ended up cutting that out. My tendinitis has got better and I've started to feel it less.

"Now I've gone fully vegan and normally the start of pre-season can be quite a tough time because you're loading, and that's normally when it's at its worst, but I haven't felt it at all.

"The main reason I started was my health. At first, I was half and half so I was cutting out red meat but still eating some meat so I was getting a bit of both."

Smalling missed out the last two games of United's preseason tour due to injury.