Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United Read online

  It’s one thing to have confidence in your own abilities. It’s a completely different challenge to instil confidence in others. Every player is always competing for their place in the side. If they emerged from the academy, progressed through the reserves and made it into the first-team squad, there was always the prospect of someone else emerging through the youth system, or from the transfer market, who might be better. At the end of every season there were always members of the squad who went on their summer holidays unsure whether their place would be assured when we played our first League game the following August. Young players are usually intimidated by the veterans, in part because they are playing alongside their boyhood idols, while the older players are always battling with the spectre of age and injury. Even if an injury does not bring a rude end to a career or, worse still, the promise of a career, as happened with young Ben Thornley in 1994, it erodes a player’s confidence and spirit.

  Many players, particularly the younger ones, take their bodies for granted as reliable allies. Yet after an injury, they immediately enter no man’s land, where they stop travelling with the team, work through rehab by themselves, and have to deal with the uncertainty of whether they will recover or if the club will buy a replacement. Some are even plagued with guilt about being paid when, in their own mind, they are not contributing anything. Two examples come to mind: when Fernando Redondo joined AC Milan from Real Madrid, he suffered an awful knee injury in one of his first training sessions, and refused to be paid until he was fit to play. It was two and a half years before he made his debut and he didn’t take a penny off his new club in that time. When Martin Buchan left Manchester United in 1983 after 11 years of service, he joined Oldham Athletic and received a hefty signing-on fee in the process. Early in his second season he realised that he no longer had what it took to be playing professional football, so knocked on his manager’s door, retired, and returned his signing-on fee. Two class acts from men of honour.

  Every player can have his confidence rattled during a game. They may be having an off day, they don’t want the ball to come in their direction and, believe it or not, they may even secretly want to get substituted. I always found that strikers and goalkeepers had the most doubts about themselves and, if their confidence was shaken, they completely changed. When goal-scorers don’t score, they are convinced they will never score again, and when they score they cannot imagine they will ever miss another opportunity. All my strikers were like that, including Mark Hughes, Eric Cantona and Ruud van Nistelrooy. Mark Hughes, who in recent years has been a manager, played for United between 1983 and 1986, and 1988 and 1995; he was as tough as nails and a man of great determination. Mark was born to be a big game player and could always be counted on in the most important games, but was deeply affected when he didn’t score.

  Van Nistelrooy’s entire identity as a man was bound up with scoring goals. When he didn’t score in a game, even if we won, the storm clouds would gather. He had that Calvinist attitude which meant he felt he hadn’t earned his keep and didn’t deserve to be paid if he failed to score. Without doubt, of all the strikers I managed, he was the most single-minded. His whole existence revolved around scoring goals. After we beat Everton in 2003 to win the League, Ruud ran straight to the dressing room to see whether he or Thierry Henry had won the Golden Boot, the award given to the Premier League player who has scored the most goals in the season. It turned out that he’d won it that year and could enjoy his summer.

  As for goalkeepers, Tim Howard has had a wonderful career at Everton since he left United in 2006. However, though he got off to a good start during his first season at Old Trafford, after we brought him over from America, his confidence never seemed to be the same after he made a mistake in 2004 against FC Porto, which eliminated us from that year’s Champions League competition. It rattled him to his core, and though he came back into the side, he never seemed impregnable. I feel for goalkeepers because, after they let in a goal, everyone in the entire stadium is looking at them. It’s all too easy to forget about the mistimed tackle, the three bad passes or the botched back pass that caused the goal in the first place.

  When David de Gea joined us in 2011, he had the unenviable task of filling a role that had been masterfully occupied by the Dutchman, Edwin van der Sar, for six years. David was just 20 and, though he was tall, he had yet to develop the muscular strength to deal with some of the Premier League’s bruisers. His first few months were mixed and both the press and the fans were on his back. After one game, I could see that he was down, so rather than talk to him directly, I chose to make my remarks to the whole team. I told them that David was a perfect example of the character of United and that he had come to England not speaking a word of English, didn’t even have a driver’s licence, and then gets a weekly hammering from strikers who have been ordered to make his life miserable. I could see when I finished that my little talk had lifted his spirits. He is now among the very best keepers in the world, thanks to the work of Eric Steele, the goalkeeping coach, and others.

  The other place where the level of individual confidence is revealed is when penalty kicks are taken in a sudden-death finish. Some players, like Patrice Evra, would be spectacular penalty takers during practice but dreaded the idea of being asked to do the same in a game. Paul Ince was the same, and Wes Brown, our long-time stalwart defender, would sooner have played barefoot than take a penalty. I think Wes prayed that the game would be decided before he had to take his turn. Then there were the guys who just brimmed with confidence. On the rare occasion that Eric Cantona would miss from the spot, he had a look on his face that said to the world, ‘How did that happen?’ I don’t think he thought it conceivable that he could miss a penalty. Denis Irwin, Steve Bruce, Brian McClair, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Robin van Persie, Wayne Rooney: all relished hammering in penalties. Rooney seems to excel when he is under pressure. In May 2011 we were trailing Blackburn Rovers 1–0, needed a point to win the League, and 17 minutes from the end of regular time we got a penalty. Rooney absolutely battered it into the top corner. I’m sure it helps that, even before he has taken the field in any given match, Wayne has decided where he will place the ball if he takes a penalty kick.

  From time to time, I’d slide players on in the last few minutes of regular time if I sensed we were heading for a sudden-death finish. I did that in the 2008 Champions League final when I sent on Anderson, the Brazilian midfielder, to take a penalty kick. He was only 20 at the time, but he had all the confidence in the world and scored our sixth penalty, helping us beat Chelsea for our third success in the competition.

  Sometimes the occasion would overwhelm even the most experienced of players. You can imagine the tension associated with what might have been the biggest single game of a player’s career. It is unrealistic to think that all of them can ignore the press build-up, block out the noise and atmosphere inside a stadium and treat a cup final–particularly a Champions League final–as just another game against 11 mortals. Life does not work that way. When we played Barcelona in Rotterdam in the 1991 European Cup Winners’ Cup final, Paul Ince, who was 23 years old at the time, was a bag of nerves. It did not help matters that the kick-off was delayed to allow the crowd to finish entering the stadium. Paul had a rocky first half, during which Bryan Robson had been snapping at him. At half-time I said to him, ‘Incey, just concentrate on the game. Forget everything that’s happened before the game. Nothing bad is going to happen. Just go and relax and enjoy it.’ In the second half he was much better and worked brilliantly with Robson to protect our defence.

  We also had peculiar situations when a player might voluntarily make life more difficult for himself and increase his own anxiety level. That happened in 1995 when we were knocked out of the UEFA Cup at Old Trafford by Rotor Volgograd. I had picked John O’Kane, who was a gifted player but had only appeared a few times in the first team, to play right-back. Ten minutes before the kick-off, well after the team-sheets had been submitted, he told me he wanted to play
left-back. It was clear that he was rattled by the prospect of the game, but there was nothing I could do. It was a death wish because he was up against a Volgograd winger who was a flying machine. I put Phil Neville at right-back, played O’Kane at left-back and pulled him out of the game before half an hour had gone by, after he had been torn apart.

  Every now and again, something beyond our control would rattle the confidence and resolve of the entire club. At those sorts of junctures it’s vital to boost the collective confidence. When Manchester City started forking out the biggest sums ever seen in Britain, it was natural that everyone at United would be reading the newspapers with a mixture of shock and awe. This was exacerbated when we gave Manchester City the League championship on goal difference in 2012 after we only got ten points out of a possible 18 in the final six games of the season. I know people will misinterpret this, or take it for sour grapes, but City didn’t win that championship; we lost it.

  I used City’s Premier League title to buttress everyone’s confidence later that summer. As we reassembled for the following season, I kept reiterating that United expected to win absolutely every game we played. It didn’t matter whether our opponent was the reigning Premier League, or Champions League champions, or a fourth division team we’d drawn in the FA Cup. I was just able to keep reinforcing the ideology that no club was bigger than United–no matter whether their owner controlled all the oil in the Persian Gulf, or every coal-mine in Russia.

  3

  ASSEMBLING THE PIECES

  Organisation

  I realise that the system within a football club doesn’t have the complexity of what is required to design a nuclear submarine, build 50 million mobile phones or organise clinical trials for a new drug. But like every organisation we needed to be well run and had to be sure that our system was deeply ingrained. Our product just happened to be a football team, rather than a car or washing machine, and our whole reason for being was to make sure all the pieces of our product–all the different players–fitted together.

  I’ve always felt that it’s impossible to field a great football team if you don’t have a great organisation. Most owners and managers mess around with team selection without any underlying purpose. They arrange everything back to front and are too impatient for quick results. Before you can field a great team, you have to build a great organisation, and all the elements have to be assembled properly. That takes time, especially in circumstances which business books call ‘turnarounds’. At United my responsibility was for the team, while the club’s CEOs–principally Martin Edwards from the time I joined the club until 2000, and thereafter my commercial soul-mate David Gill–worried about everything else.

  When I joined United there were four or five departments and about 85 people, including the groundsmen, laundry team, kitchen and administrative staff. The club made money from the sale of season tickets and gate receipts. If we were on television, which was rare in the mid-1980s, we’d get a small four-figure sum for a live game. After I assessed the situation, my aim was to build the club again rather than to build the team. I was confident that if we did the first part properly, and people were patient, we’d eventually be able to have the best team. It was also clear that we were not going to be an overnight success.

  These days Manchester City and Liverpool are trying desperately to develop their own talent. Manchester City, which doesn’t have Liverpool’s lineage or history, and has always operated in United’s long shadow, is pulling out all the stops. Manchester City spent £32.5 million, on Robinho, the day after Sheikh Mansour’s purchase of the club in 2008 and more than £600 million since, but I am not sure that it has bought them much beyond a squad which, at the end of last season, was showing signs of wear and tear. While you might be able to buy your way to short-term success, it does not work over the long term. That requires patience, and the construction of a complete organisation.

  Preparation

  The most important aspect of our system was training. Whatever happens on a Saturday afternoon has already occurred on the training ground. If I was starting again as a manager, the thing I would focus on the most is a player’s attitude during training sessions. If they take it seriously and have the necessary talent and determination, good things will happen. If they are inclined to slack off, they will never make it over the long haul. Our training ground was where the real work was done. There was a rhythm to this from which we rarely deviated. The day following a game, all the players would come in for loosening exercises, a massage and Jacuzzi. On Monday we would have a thorough training session and, if we had a midweek fixture, Tuesday would be devoted to pre-match preparation, Thursday would be a recovery day and then the whole cycle would start again. We were very careful to emphasise the need for proper recovery–not just after games but also after big competitions. For example, we gave players who participated in the World Cup a full 28 days to recover from the exertions. I would also sometimes send a few of the older players away for a week’s break in December. In the winter of the 1998–99 season, I sent Peter Schmeichel off on holiday to get some sun on his back and rest. From time to time I did the same with younger players. I sent Gary Neville to Malta for a week when, early in the season following the 1998 World Cup, it became apparent that his batteries were low. These breaks helped restore them and ensure they were fit for the rest of the season.

  I laid down the ground rules for training and I wanted my ideas to be implemented on the practice field. When Steve McClaren took over training at United in 1999, I was very specific with him. He was going to run the training, but I made sure he understood that I required intensity, concentration and commitment in every training session. I told him that if he was dissatisfied, he either had to start all over again until it was right, or get the players back for an additional session. There had to be no bad sessions.

  I just didn’t want people tinkering with our training system. When Carlos Queiroz started running training sessions, a couple of the players didn’t like the sessions because they were too repetitive. I stopped one training session and told them, ‘When I was a player I wished I’d been coached by Carlos. All the repetitive things we are working on will become second nature on Saturday when you have no time to think.’ All our planning and preparation was to help guard against a sudden rush of animal instincts in the heat of the moment. When a game starts to go in the wrong direction, it is so easy for players–especially the youngsters–to be controlled by their heart rather than their head. That’s the last thing you want. But don’t forget that football is an emotional game and there can be bad tackles or refereeing decisions that can affect people. Desire and a ferocious need to win are wonderful attributes, but they have to be tempered by a cool head. Ninety per cent of the time most players are fine, but there can be occasions when raw emotion overtakes the need for discipline. All of our drills on the training grounds, all our tactical talks and assessment of competitors were done as a way to hammer into the heads of the players the need to stick to the plan. It is very hard to persuade extremely competitive spirits to be patient. Yet very often our victories were squeaked out in the last few minutes, after we had drained the life from our opponents. Games–like life–are all about waiting for chances and then pouncing on them.

  As the years went by the system became so familiar and so well understood that my assistants didn’t need to be reminded. It was helped by the fact that we had players who had been with the club for many years like Vidić, Evra and Ferdinand and, most of all, by the players who had known no other world than United–like Scholes, Giggs and the Neville brothers. The players came to understand my values, and the older players automatically transmitted these values to the younger players or new signings. There was just a consistency of ideas.

  It’s extraordinary what you can do on the training ground, especially if you have people with receptive minds who are eager to improve. Andy Cole was a standout example. When he joined us as a 23 year old after being at Arsenal, Bristol City a
nd Newcastle United, he just wanted to loiter in the penalty box and score. After about three months of training he had improved immeasurably. He was better on his feet and his overall footballing ability had been enhanced. I discovered that this sort of change was not limited to the younger players. One extraordinary example was Henrik Larsson, who was a striker in his mid-thirties when he was loaned to us in 2007 during the Swedish off-season. Everybody kept saying, ‘I wish he had been with us when he was a boy.’ He just sopped up everything we said to him, but he returned to Sweden because he had made a promise to his family and his club, Helsingborgs. Something similar happened when we signed Michael Owen when he was almost 30. He only made 52 appearances for us but, even though he had played for Liverpool, Real Madrid and Newcastle United, and had been in the England team for a decade, he still had the desire and pride to want to improve while he was at Old Trafford.