"We could be on the team coach and pass the services on the motorway and Anderson would jump up impulsively and yell 'McDonald's, McDonald's'," Rafael da Silva wrote in his autobiography as quoted by the Mirror.
"The guy was crazy, but I love him. Give him a football and he would just play with freedom and sometimes, if he got a good run of games, he could play as well as any player in the league.
"He picked up a lot of big injuries and then his problems with eating the way he did started to affect him.
"It was no coincidence that his best form came when he had a lot of games because that was when he couldn't eat so much.
"I will say something about Anderson – if he had been a professional football player, he could have been the best in the world.
"I'm saying this was all seriousness. I don't know if he ever took anything seriously. He just loved life in such an easy and casual way.
"In some ways that was a quality. It was what made him so popular and one of the most popular players at the club.
"But he would just eat whatever was put in front of him."
Anderson made 181 appearances for Man United during his 8-year spell at the club.
He has never reached the heights expected of him and retired in September 2020 after spending a season with Turkish second-division side Adana Demirspor.
