Steve McClaren is explaining the differences he encountered between being No 2 to Sir Alex Ferguson at the turn of the millennium and assisting Erik ten Hag nearly a quarter of a century later.
Players in 2022 scrutinised the Manchester United manager’s decisions more than they did in 1999, he says.
“First question they ask, ‘Can that man help us win football matches?’. That’s it. Not be my friend, not be this, not be that. Can you win me football matches? Every time you don’t, they’re looking at you going, ‘Hmm, why are we doing this?’. There probably isn’t that automatic respect for coaches. The game’s changed,” he says.
In this interview, McClaren will go on to talk about Bruno Fernandes being among the best five players he has encountered, how Kobbie Mainoo can add to his game, Casemiro’s professionalism after his exit seemed certain, why Harry Maguire should be at the World Cup, and Diogo Dalot’s rallying role after the 4-0 defeat at Crystal Palace that, McClaren says, the team and staff “should have walked home from”.
McClaren, 64, has plenty of experience to draw on. He assisted Sven-Goran Eriksson in three tournaments with England but failed to reach the 2008 European Championship as manager himself. At Middlesbrough, he won the League Cup and reached the UEFA Cup final. He then led Twente to the only Dutch league title in their 60-year history. Most recently, he managed Jamaica.
Under Ferguson’s leadership, he coached United for a glorious two-and-a-half-year period that started with the treble of Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League, and finished with the third of three successive league titles.
Returning to United 21 years later as a key figure in Ten Hag’s staff, McClaren lifted the Carabao Cup and FA Cup, helping towards a memorable victory over Manchester City at Wembley. But there was turbulence too, starting straight away with Cristiano Ronaldo.
“Erik tried to impose his style and that’s why he had that fight with Ronaldo all the way through,” McClaren says. “I said to Erik, very early, ‘It’s you or him’.
“Ronaldo was generally OK. But he didn’t want to do the job that Erik wanted him to do. Or didn’t feel he was capable of doing it. The instructions out of possession were, ‘Get into the middle, as soon as you’re back, you’re the first press, then double run, even a triple run now and again’.
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“I used to say to Ronnie, ‘If you want to play, that’s what you’ve got to do’. He’d argue, ‘Ah, nobody wants to press’. I’d say, ‘Well, they’re all young lads, they can press’.
“It’s right that 11 players attack, 11 players defend. Not 11 players attack, 10 players defend. So I said, ‘You have to run, it’s simple, Ronnie. If you don’t, you don’t play’.
“Maybe other managers have tried to adapt and accommodate to get the best out of him. The balance of that was significant. You’ve probably got half the squad going, ‘We think Ronnie’s right’, and half going, ‘We think Erik is right’.
“Well, with Fergie, he was right or you were out. If you weren’t with him and he knew it, you were gone. And that’s the authority, the power that he had developed over years and years.
“Now, the problems we had with Erik at the beginning, Fergie had exactly the same. He used to tell me stories about fighting all the drinkers. Fergie said, ‘I fought them every day, Steve’. I told him, ‘I’d have loved to have been your assistant at that time’. I don’t think I’d have survived, but I’d have loved it. The characters.
“The Gaffer, Sir Alex, got time to do it. Erik didn’t get the same time. In a way, I could believe it. But in some respects, I couldn’t, because he won the Carabao Cup and the FA Cup.”
Speaking in 2022 to Piers Morgan about the pressing football that some coaches at United had desired, Ronaldo said: “To be honest, it’s something that I don’t understand. The new coaches that are coming around, they think they’ve found the last Coca-Cola in the desert. I don’t understand.
“I respect any coach that has a different approach or different mentality, but there are some points where you don’t agree. I’ve always been like that in my life.”
McClaren is chatting over a Starbucks coffee at Leeds Skelton Lake services, a far cry from the feverish atmosphere of our last encounter in November. That was in the depths of the Jamaica National Stadium in Kingston, when McClaren resigned from his position in charge of the country’s football team.
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Jamaica had drawn 0-0 with Curacao to miss out on an immediate path to the World Cup, leaving 35,000 fans distraught, with some trying to get into the dressing room to confront McClaren and the players.
“The organisation wasn’t good enough, and it was too late to really do anything about it,” McClaren says now of the Jamaica setup. “So it was more frustration with that.”
He points to his ankle, adding: “And I was getting so sore with this, that I just needed it right.” The injury restricted his coaching on the grass, his passion. “My ankle’s good now, so I’m feeling a lot better,” he says.
In March, Jamaica, under interim head coach Rudolph Speid, failed to reach the World Cup at the second attempt, losing against DR Congo in the play-off final.
McClaren, meanwhile, made a three-man shortlist to take over the vacancy in charge of Ghana. The prospect of McClaren facing Thomas Tuchel’s England in Foxboro, Massachusetts, in the second Group L game of the World Cup would have been a striking narrative arc, but Ghana went for Carlos Queiroz, who has his own United history, taking the role of Ferguson’s assistant in 2002
Queiroz, 73, is the latest veteran manager to re-emerge, giving McClaren some encouragement that he can yet become a head coach again.
“I look at what Roy Hodgson is doing (interim head coach at Bristol City aged 78), and Martin O’Neill (74) at Celtic, and Curacao with Dick Advocaat (before the 78-year-old resigned in February), and I’m going, ‘Jesus Christ’. But then you get over a certain age and no one thinks, ‘We’ll give him a job’. They’re all young bucks now, aren’t they? But now I’ve sorted my ankle, I still have the energy to coach a club or national team again,” he says.
Stepping into the studio holds little appeal. “Urgh, not punditry. I don’t mind doing the occasional podcast, they’re entertaining. But I only want to talk about tactics and how the game’s going. I still love all that.”
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Recently, he has contributed to a television programme on England’s ‘golden generation’, sparking conversations with former midfielder Owen Hargreaves.
“We could never solve the Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Paul Scholes situation. Which one do you take out? We could have got Owen as a ‘six’ (holding midfielder). But recently, Owen said to me, ‘Steve, I wouldn’t have picked me ahead of them’.”
Appearing on The Good, The Bad & The Football podcast with Scholes, McClaren heard about the rifts in camp. “I thought the players got on great,” he reflects. “And then Scholesy comes out with some stories. Wow, really? I didn’t realise that.”
He does recall an encounter with Ferguson from his time in charge at Middlesbrough that touched on the club-vs-country issue. “United were playing Middlesbrough at Old Trafford in a game before an international break. I thought, ‘I’ll say hello to him’. Knocked on the door in his office. I was Middlesbrough manager but assistant with Sven. ‘Hi, Gaffer.’ All United’s England players were sat around. He went, ‘Don’t think you’re getting any of these lads’. He was half-joking but he was having a word with them.”
McClaren can track other changes that have happened across his time in football. “The modern game is becoming mechanical,” he says. “We are losing the flair of that No 10, creative, can see things, your Brunos. I went to see Manchester City recently, Rayan Cherki, amazing, he can do things that make you go, ‘Oh my god’. He is driving the team mad, but I love those players. Yorkie (Dwight Yorke) was the same, all flicks.”
McClaren has coached several United legends but he ranks Fernandes highly. “I remember his first game at Old Trafford, he picked out long balls and diagonals. I thought, ‘Missing link’. He wants to do everything. He’s really one of the top five players I’ve coached,” he says.
“He’s got scrolls of vision, that je ne sais quoi. I’ve seen things in training, you go, ‘Wow’. His attitude, his professionalism is first class. He’s first in, last away. Last on the pitch, doing shooting, practising all day to be better. His personality is great. At times, emotional.
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“We only clashed once. He didn’t clap the fans, so we had a bit of a row about that. I think it was Newcastle’s win 3-0 at Old Trafford (Carabao Cup fourth round, November 2023). I was more upset with the team and the players. It was bad, but the next day we kissed and made up. He is excellent with fans 99 per cent of the time.”
Steve McClaren shows his frustration as Bruno Fernandes walks away after the 3-0 defeat against Newcastle United in 2023 (Getty Images)
That edge, McClaren argues, is essential to Fernandes’ game, in the same way as Roy Keane had to play with fire in his belly.
“We had one spell when we said to Roy, ‘You’ve got to calm down a bit’. Because it was beginning to be a problem. Through the trouble he got into, he used to miss five or six games a season,” he says.
“He tried to calm down, and he was rubbish. So we said, ‘Forget that, be yourself, it’s all right, we’ll miss you for five games, don’t want you to be a pussycat on the field’.
“And Bruno is the same. When I used to have to be the referee in training, he’s a nightmare. It’s just passion. He’s fit, he runs around, he scores, he assists, his numbers are phenomenal.”
Steve McClaren coached Roy Keane during the peak of his career at Manchester United (Getty Images)
Fernandes is one assist away from equalling the Premier League record held by Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne. His pass to Mainoo in the 2024 FA Cup final, McClaren’s last United game, stands out as one of the best in his career.
“I used to see that every week in training,” McClaren counters. “Better than that. I’d think, ‘How did you see that?’. That’s what Bruno has. Scholesy had that too. ‘Never saw that’, I’d say to people.”
Equally, McClaren could not see a way back for Ten Hag and his staff after United got thumped at Selhurst Park in May 2024. “Crystal Palace? I said to the staff, ‘We should all be walking home. We don’t deserve to even get on a coach, definitely not a plane’.
“I didn’t think we’d survive Palace but once we got to the Arsenal game the following week, it was different. Performance was good, players were together.” United lost that next Premier League game 1-0 but showed fight.
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McClaren continues: “There were a few days where I’d seen the lads realise, ‘No excuses now’. There was a shift with the players. I tell you who was at the forefront of that: Diogo. He was excellent. He was really close with Ronaldo. It was a yin and yang. He was always positive. Intelligent. He’d say, ‘It’s on us’. He used to rally the troops, with Bruno.”
Steve McClaren says it was Diogo Dalot who rallied United in one of their lowest moments (Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
McClaren watched from the balcony over the gym as players, led by Fernandes and Dalot, started using the activation area before training for two-touch football in a circle. “A bit of fun, laughing. I used to sit looking over, going, ‘Oh, OK, players are taking it upon themselves’.
“You could see that against Arsenal. To be fair to Erik, he realised it wasn’t working. ‘Stats are saying we can’t press high, so maybe it’d be better to be compact’. That was the first adjustment. The players were going, ‘We’ll have this, it’ll work’. They bought into it.”
“Getting the Arsenal game was really good. Everyone kind of went, ‘Listen to Erik, win the FA Cup, and then we can ride off into the sunset’.”
Beating City at Wembley meant the sunset lingered longer than most expected. “It was a great game tactically,” says McClaren.
Ten Hag surprised people by dropping Casemiro in place of Sofyan Amrabat. Casemiro then withdrew from the squad due to the injury he had been managing.
“I thought Erik and him coming back for pre-season was a miracle,” admits McClaren. “But Casemiro was the best trainer. Never said a word about the final. Attitude was great.”
Erik ten Hag and Steve McClaren after winning the FA Cup (Michael Regan/The FA via Getty Images)
By then, former striker Ruud van Nistelrooy had arrived as an assistant, with Ten Hag shuffling his coaching staff. “Ruud helped out, he had that stature. He could speak Spanish or Portuguese to Casemiro. Every day I watched Casemiro train, I went, ‘That’s why he’s at the top’. And now he’s still playing for Brazil and will be at the World Cup.”
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Mainoo is another player who should be in North America this summer, given his form since Michael Carrick arrived in January.
McClaren was blown away when he first saw Mainoo aged 17. “He came out of nowhere and Erik suddenly went, ‘He’s training with us’,” says McClaren. “That’s totally down to Erik. I remember him saying first day, ‘Watch him’. I couldn’t believe it, never gave the ball away. Strong as an ox. Then Erik played him. I went, ‘He’s terrific’. He was Erik’s kind of player, in terms of build-up from the back and being able to take the ball.”
Viewing Mainoo as a connector, McClaren feels the 21-year-old can still improve. “I want him to be more authoritative on the field, even when he plays for England,” says McClaren. “He is neat and tidy. But he is capable of imposing himself more. He wants to be top, top. Casemiro has helped him.”
McClaren, who assisted Eriksson as England reached the World Cup quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006, is not sure how Tuchel’s side will fare in the United States, Canada and Mexico. “I was pretty confident until I saw them against Japan (1-0 defeat) and Uruguay (1-1 draw) the other day,” he says. “But Harry Kane didn’t play, so that’s a big difference. They’re all right. Defence I worry about.”
McClaren would select two United players in that area of the squad. “I’d take Luke Shaw with Harry Maguire, you have to,” he says. “Even if Maguire is a sub. You bring him on for 20 minutes and stick him up front, what a weapon, in each box.
“I hear Tuchel say set plays are going to be a big part of the World Cup and I’m thinking, ‘Harry has got to be first on the list’.”
Back in his time with England, McClaren coached Carrick. “He was very quiet, very intelligent,” he reflects. “Assertive.”
Carrick is using that mentality to guide United back into the Champions League for the first time in three years. “It’s kind of great being the interim,” says McClaren. “You can say, ‘They’re the players I’ve got, what else do you expect me to do? I’m working wonders with them’. Michael has proved he can do that. He proved he could do that with Middlesbrough in the first season. I remember watching them going, ‘Mmm, that’s good, I like what he’s doing’.”
Maintaining success, as McClaren knows well, is a different challenge entirely.