88
(^) Daily Mail, Thursday, March 5, 2020
Now I’m a coach I know
the real reason Fergie
kept having a go at me!
I
t I S w h e n Wa y n e
R o o n e y i s a s k e d
whether any of Sir
Alex Ferguson’s old
man-management ruses
m a k e m o r e s e n s e t o
him, now that he is a
player-coach, that the first
smile breaks out.
‘I know what you’re saying,’
he replies. ‘I always remember as
a kid, every half-time, arguing
with him constantly. I remember
thinking, “Why does he keep
having a go at me? there’s play-
ers far worse than I’ve been!”
then the older you get, the more
you realise why he’s doing it. He’s
obviously aiming at other players
who can’t take it.’
One ‘other’ he has in mind is
Nani, a player Ferguson once
called ‘pure raw material’ but
who had a habit of dribbling when
a pass was required at times. ‘He
would have a go at me for drib-
bling,’ Rooney says, continuing
the Ferguson train of thought. ‘I
very rarely dribble. I dribbled a
bit more then, but with Nani, it
would just maybe trigger some-
thing in his head, thinking, “Oh
maybe I shouldn’t dribble as
much”. He knew how to get that
message across without being...
without losing it. If he spoke to
Nani the way he spoke to me, he’d
break down in tears. He wouldn’t
be able to go back out!’
One of the post-match utter-
ances Ferguson most regretted
was a negative comment about
Nani after United had lost 5-4 to
Chelsea in a League Cup game in
- Rooney, though, could take
anything Ferguson gave him and
return it with interest. ‘It was
good — for me as well,’ he says,
grasping for a way of defining the
pleasure of those days which
already seem to belong in a
different lifetime.
‘I enjoyed it. As players, you
want to win and you have to be
respectful; he was the manager.
But the one thing which never
happened, it never got carried
on. the game was over, we forgot
about it and moved on.’
Rooney’s referencing of Fergu-
son has been one of the most
striking aspects of his venture
across the coaching frontier at
Derby County where — with one
of those delicious twists football
provides — he will face United in
the FA Cup 5th round tonight.
there can be no disguising that
it did not end well between the
two of them. Rooney was dropped
so frequently by Ferguson in the
Scot’s last season that he asked
to leave, the day after the team
last won the Premier League
seven years ago. He was not even
in the squad 20 days later for
Ferguson’s Old trafford swan-
song against Swansea City. the
manager’s autobiography creates
an indelible sense that he never
quite forgave Rooney for publicly
asking to leave United in 2010.
It is telling that Rooney cites
that episode when asked for his
United ‘lows’. ‘there was the time
when I nearly left the club,’ he
says. ‘Which I regret.’
But it may be even more gratify-
ing for Ferguson, now 78, to find
Rooney citing his old ways of
understanding the individual.
‘I think it’s important you get to
know the person,’ Rooney
says. ‘You see them as play-
ers but it’s important you
get to know them as charac-
ters and then make a deci-
sion how you are going to
approach them. You know if
you’re going to have a go at
them, if you’re going to put
your arm around them. the
man management is really
important.’
Derby’s players attest to
this being the way he does
things. ‘We talk a lot about
football,’ says Max Bird,
arguably the most improved
Derby player since Rooney
arrived and began operatingalongside him at the back of mid-
field. ‘But not always the football
he wants to see in the team. He
gets to know you, too.’
the 34-year- old’s world has
turned in so many ways. He was
asked to be a studio guest
for United’s match at Everton
on Sunday, but concluded that
tactically dissecting tonight’s
opponents on national television
would not be ideal. ‘It’s a bit dif-
ferent now,’ he says. ‘I was look-
ing at how United set up and
looking at where their weaknesses
are, where we can hurt them.’
Making notes, then? ‘Yeah — just
in preparation for the game.’
He now appreciates the risks
attached to chipping in with a
tactical contribution, too. ‘I think
the one big difference is that you
sometimes make a suggestion
on players to select, or how we
should play or a set-piece and
you’re thinking, “I hope this
works!” Of course they don’t
always pay off.’
I t h a s h e l p e d R o o n e y ’ sintegration that Derby’s phleg-
matic Dutch manager Phillip
Cocu takes a collegiate approach
and is not threatened by his pres-
ence. ‘He’s open to input with all
the staff,’ Rooney says. ‘I think
the best managers are. You can’t
be naive and think, “I’m going to
do it all my own way”.’
Rooney’s tendency to run to the
bench while team-mates cele-
brate a goal signifies his new con-
tribution — though not always.
‘the lads were too far away! I was
just getting a drink and waiting
for them to come back,’ he says of
one such occasion.
the settings here are more pro-
saic than at United. A parents’
day for prospective academy play-
ers is the dominant event of the
day at the training ground, where
he walks into a room to talk
in sandals identified as his
by initials scrawled in pen.
But he has glittered in the
quarterback role. there’s the
old appreciation of
space, angles, tra-
j e c t o r i e s , t h e
ebb and flow of
a match and how
to exploiting weak-
ness. All intuitive.
‘People think playing
midfield is more demanding
but it is more about having the
endurance,’ he says.
‘there’s not as much high-
speed running, so that’s not a
problem. then it is about try-
ing to get on the ball and try-
ing to drag players out of posi-
tion. A lot of teams try to put
players on me, which allows
me to drag them out of posi-
tion and leave space.’
He will need legs around
him tonight as United will
challenge him with the kind
of pace displayed by few sidesin a fairly average Championship.
‘It’s not a game where we’re going
to be fearing Manchester United,’
he insists. ‘We need to go into this
g a m e b e l i e v i n g w e h a v e a
chance.’
there will be satisfaction in
demonstrating to a national
audience that the flame still burns
— and in showing Everton that
they owed him more than an
ignominious exit after one season
back at the club. He spent three
frustrating months trying to
establish if owner Farhad Moshiri
wanted him there. that rankles,
he admits.
‘It was a big thing for me to go
back there. there were things
that got said, or didn’t get said.
All I wanted from Everton was
a bit of honesty with the sit-
uation. I said to them,by Ian
Herbert
Deputy Chief
Sports Writer
wayne rooney I nTerVIew
Manchester UniteD
need ‘two or three
years’ to compete at
the top of British
football again and
cannot simply throw
cash at the problem,
says Wayne rooney.
the former United
skipper cited Liverpool
as one of the models of
success which his old
club must learn from.
rooney said: ‘it is going
to take time. it is going
to take another two or
three years, i believe.‘they need to bring in
some players, they
need to get rid of
some players.
‘it’s not going to
happen (quickly).
they’ve tried that with
Louis van Gaal, with
Jose Mourinho. if you
look at Liverpool and
what they’ve done,
and Man city, you’re
not going to buy a
team to go and
challenge with them.
‘You see with Liverpool
— they’ve built thatteam. Pep Guardiola
has gradually brought
more players in at city
and his way of playing.
so United have to be a
bit patient and try to
build a team that will
be able to challenge
those two.
‘the Manchester
United fans need to be
a bit patient with what
is going on.’
United boss Ole Gunnar
solskjaer, meanwhile
has told his players to
watch out for rooneyin tonight’s Fa cup fifth
round clash. solskjaer
spent three seasons
with rooney at Old
trafford and warned:
‘he’s a threat in and
around the box with
set-plays. Wayne will
show what he can do in
this game.
‘he wants to prove
there is still fight in the
old dog. We’ve got to
be on our toes and not
give him any space in
midfield.’
Ian Herbert‘united need two or three years to get back to the top’
“I’m not a child, I’ll accept what-
ever you want to happen”. that
was the only disappointment. But
Everton is a fantastic club.’
thoughts are now moving to a
life beyond the pitch. ‘that’s life,
unfortunately! I preferred it 10
years ago,’ he reflects. ‘We all get
older. You have to move into
something different. I can’t play
for ever. I love the game and I
want to stay in it so this is where
I am. I want to learn. I think it’s a
shame when you see great players
walking away and not really
having a go at management or
coaching.’
B y J u l y, h e a i m s t o h a v e
completed his UEFA A Licence,
w h i c h w i l l i n v o l v e w o r k a t
St George’s Park this summer,
and then apply for a place on the
Pro License course next January.
the development of Bird, whom
Rooney sees as future England
material, and 19-year-old Irish
Under 21 midfielder Jason Knight,
is testament to his capacity to
pass on some of what he has and
to inspire. But you can’t teach the
talent he brought to the game.
As groundings go, a dressing
room seat in front of Ferguson for
13 years is not too shabby. ‘I don’t
think you will get better than how
he managed his players and the
trust he gave them to manage
the dressing room themselves,’
Rooney says. ‘that management
— it’s the best I’ve ever seen.’Football
Spectacular: Rooney’s goal
against Man City in 2011