Reading to Old Trafford in the Cup...
the routine business of the modern manager — sheltering the team from off-the-field distraction, in this case a protracted takeover. Reading have been targeted by the Chinese brother and sister, Dai Yongge and Dai Xiu Li, who failed to buy Hull last summer after the Premier League ruled they could not pass the fit and proper persons test.
‘If the owners are in talks about a takeover you just need to focus on your job,’ says Stam. ‘When I speak to Brian Tevreden, the technical director, or the owner himself, we talk about it a bit and is something going to happen or not? Especially now in the transfer window: can we do anything with (buying) players? But we don’t speak about it too long. I can’t do anything about it.’
For now, Reading seem to have taken to Stam, just as Stam has to Reading. At United, though he could always play, he also fitted the norm as a physically imposing centre half. But he is Dutch and so, now, are Reading, at least in their playing style. ‘We’ve asked a lot from the players, taking them out of their comfort zone, to do totally different things to what they’ve done. You can see that players like it, they improve.
‘They like it because a lot of times they touch the ball a lot and as a player you like to touch the ball, instead of launching it and then running in and trying to win it back. I’m not necessarily saying that is wrong, but players want to have the ball and take the initiative. From what we expect, defenders need to attack, attackers need to defend.
‘The centre-backs need to take initiative in the build-up and come into the midfield sometimes, instead of just playing it simple. So everybody is enjoying themselves.’
His success so far begs the question of which of his former managers provide inspiration for his current job. Guus Hiddink is a reference point but inevitably one name dominates discussion. ‘I think Fergie was one of the best at building a team,’ he says. ‘It was how he got players into the squad that could perform straightaway with the right qualities but also the right mentality, which combined together to give him trophies. At United the mentality of the players was unbelievable. Every game we went for it.
‘We had a lot of quality as individuals but the mentality in the game, even when we went 1-0 down or it was 0-0 near the end of the game, meant that we kept on going and kept on trusting ourselves and that’s why we got success. Players were on top of each other when they weren’t performing well. Someone was in your face saying, “What are you doing? It’s not good enough! You have to step up!” That was Ferguson’s mentality and it became the team’s mentality as well.
‘He had other qualities but when you go into management you start thinking about the managers in your past — “What did I learn from him? What did he do?” Then you look at the players in his team and the way he spoke to me before I joined United. He was never looking for names. You see a lot of managers, if there’s a big name free somewhere they’ll bring them in and think, “He’s a big player, we need him”. But Ferguson was always looking for certain players, ones who had qualities but also mentality as well. Players he knew he could put in the team and they could perform straight away.’
Not that he was immune from mistakes. Sir Alex has long since conceded he let Stam go far too early. Stam concurs. ‘Well, of course it was a mistake! I’m not going to deny that. I knew myself how I felt as a player at the time. And at that time you’re not happy with it. But you know as well when you go into management that sometimes you have to make certain decisions.’
The pair have never spoken of it. ‘He doesn’t need to come up to me and say, “Listen . . . ” It happened and you have to go on with your life and you try to succeed somewhere else. And eventually in football you always meet each other somewhere. There are a lot of clubs but it’s a very small world.
‘He had the confidence in me to take me over and let me play and I’ve learned from him as a manager as well now. I’d have loved to spend a couple of years extra over there, but that’s how it was.
‘I can learn from this as well. This happened to me and I know in the future if something happens to me with some player, do I do it the same way as United did it or do I need to approach that player differently?’ The latter, presumably? ‘I think so,’ he says. ‘But it’s a learning process for me as well.’