SIGN OF THE TIMES
Evra: United send lawyers to recruit players.. a guy worth £20m won’t even come for £100m
The former defender is a cult hero at United and that is why his impassioned view, on what he feels is currently wrong with the club, will strike such a chord with disillusioned fans.
Evra’s love for United can be traced back to the day Sir Alex Ferguson, and then- chief executive David Gill, flew to Monaco, in 2005, to persuade him to move to Old Trafford.
Fergie sold a vision of United to Evra, one that was to yield the left- back five Premier League titles, the Champions League, three League Cups and forge a lifelong bond with the club.
But Evra, 39, who made 379 appearances in a glittering nineyear spell, claimed United have since lost their way.
Where Ferguson once used his force of personality and unique stature to land the very best players, now it is left to executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward and chief transfer negotiator Matt Judge. Evra (with Gill and Fergie, above) said: “It’s 2am, I can’t sleep because I’m sad, I’m tired, I’m hurt. When my club hurts me so badly, I need to say everything that’s in my chest.
“The only pleasure I get from my club right now is drinking my green tea from my Manchester United cup. Where do we start? Transfers. At the time of Fergie, we didn’t hear anything, then it was – bam, bam, bam! Van Persie, Evra, Vidic, Ferdinand. Everything fast.
“Wh en United wanted d a player, they ey would just go and talk to him face e to face. face When Ferguson and Gill came to meet me at Monaco, it was worse than an interview with the CIA!
“Now we send lawyers to talk to players. When you send lawyers, you talk about numbers – they’re not people from the football world. When we want a player, who would normally cost £20million, we’re trying to buy him for £100m – but even those players, they don’t want our money any more.” Woodward (with Evra, below) took over from Gill in 2013, but has been criticised for presiding over seven years of mediocrity. Evra added: “The only problem I would say to Ed is trusting people he should never trust. “He even trusts people from outside the club. My phone is ringing, from directors at top clubs, and they say, ‘ Patrice, can you please ask Matt Judge to answer his phone?’ “We’ve got the mo money, but we’ve not got the th players, because we send the th wrong people to speak with them. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has changed that, he tries to approach the players, tries to speak with them, like Ferguson. “We sent people who knew and loved the club, who know how to talk about the club, not lawyers who only talk about money.”