Jose Mourinho and Louis van Gaal’s Manchester United spells defended by Nicky Butt
It is a „myth“ that Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho disrespected Manchester United’s academy, insists the club’s head of first-team development Nicky Butt.
Van Gaal and Mourinho both made marquee signings at United – the former purchasing Angel Di Maria for a then club record £59.7m and the latter making Paul Pogba the world’s most expensive player – but also handed debuts to the likes of Marcus Rashford and Scott McTominay.
Former United midfielder Butt, who worked under both managers in his previous role as head of the academy, feels the pair have had „a bit of an unfair press“ for their time in charge at the club.
„I think it’s harsh on van Gaal and Mourinho, and David Moyes to a point, because they didn’t come into Man United and go this is it, move it all to one side, disrespect Man United and we’ll do it this way,“ said Butt, while taking part in the latest MUTV Group Chat.
„They didn’t. They never did – it’s a myth that they did.
„Mourinho was brilliant with me. He spoke to me every single day at breakfast and asked about the kids. He did a few meetings with the kids when they were going to Portugal [in the UEFA Youth League] and telling them what to expect and so on.“
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has tried to get the club back to the traditions he learned under Sir Alex Ferguson since returning to United as manager, which has included putting a bigger emphasis on youth.
Butt admits he prefers life at United under Solskjaer but also understands how difficult it was for Van Gaal and Mourinho to try and get their methods across at the club.
„If me and you and Ben [Thornley] and Maysie [David May] said ‘Let’s go and work at Real Madrid’, you’re not going to know anybody,“ he continued.
„There’s that many people that stab you in the back in football as you all know. If you’re going into an environment you don’t know, you’re not going to open the door to every Tom, Dick and Harry, because you don’t know who these people are, you don’t know where they’re going. So you can understand both sides of the story.
„Obviously, I prefer the way it is now, I preferred the way it was when we were there [as players], but that’s because we knew everybody. You trusted the canteen staff, you trusted the cleaning staff, because you knew them when you were 16, so we can look at it in a bubble and go ‘all these managers come in here and it’s shocking’ but I don’t think it is, because you’ve got to put yourself in their position, and if you went out to a club you didn’t know, it’ll be totally different.“
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