United must be like Liverpool and find more goalscorers ... they can’t rely only on Zlatan
THAT’S WHAT YOU’D CALL A PHARAOH TRIP, GIGGSY!
HIGHLIGHTS from La Liga are on screen two yards to the left of Ryan Giggs and his attention is momentarily elsewhere. Villarreal lead by one goal at Real Betis going into the final 15 minutes.
Giggs cannot help but fix his gaze on the television. He is still holding conversation but there remains interest in what is unfolding, stealing a glance every now and then.
As it turns out, Villarreal’s victory is a rather humdrum affair. Betis, with the onus on them as hosts to attack, flatter to deceive. A little bit like Manchester United right now.
For these are curious times at Old Trafford. Jose Mourinho — the manager so long pursued by executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward and who was afforded such riches — has presided over United’s worst home run for 43 years.
Draw after draw — five from their last six at home. Despite 20 games unbeaten, they have little prospect of finishing in the top four unless they start to win more games.
United supporters claim bad luck and dubious refereeing decisions are chiefly to blame. Giggs, a fan himself these days, has his own ideas. They centre on Zlatan Ibrahimovic — still to make his mind up on activating a one-year contract extension — and the Swedish striker’s floundering support cast. ‘Frustrating’ crops up three times as Giggs supplies his verdict.
‘The problem isn’t whether Ibrahimovic stays or goes, it’s where they are going to get the goals from everywhere else,’ Giggs says. ‘Rather than concentrating on Ibrahimovic being here or not, the others need to step up.’
ONLY the trio of Ibrahimovic (16), Juan Mata (six) and Paul Pogba (four) have more than three Premier League goals this season. The days of their midfielders hitting double figures seem distant. United have found the net more than once just three times at home in the Premier League since September.
‘They’re getting in those positions, but it’s concentration when it falls for you,’ Giggs adds. ‘Jose’s said it, hasn’t he? It’s frustrating. You’re dominating games and have so many draws. You look up and it’s like: “What could have been?”
‘There’s luck, too. Pogba’s hit the bar nine times. If he scores those then he’s got 15. It’s that, it’s confidence — all of those need to come together.
‘You can’t just rely on one person because they can have an off-day. Leicester last year. Okay, Jamie Vardy scored a lot of goals, but Riyad Mahrez got 17. That’s what you need.
‘That’s what the United teams I played in were like. I’d chip in with seven or eight, Becks would, Scholesy would. Four centreforwards would. The centre-halves. Denis Irwin, too. The goals came from everywhere.
‘You only have to look at Liverpool. I questioned them — they’ve not got a centre-forward who can score 20 goals. But they just come from everywhere and they are the leading goalscorers. That’s what United need to get back.
‘My target was always to get double figures and then 15 assists. That’s 25 goals. If Becks is doing the same, you’ve got a lot there.
‘Sir Alex Ferguson would say: “This is what I expect from you”. It put pressure on but you knew what the expectations were. If you were left out, you’d know why.’
Giggs laments United’s slow start, and the admission that the players lack concentration is startling from someone who coached the vast majority of them as Louis van Gaal’s assistant last season.
In hindsight, those problems were never going to be corrected overnight. Giggs could have stayed at the club longer by taking a diminished role, although he never spoke directly with Mourinho following the Portuguese’s appointment.
Now, 43, Giggs is enjoying time out of the spotlight, choosing to focus on business interests and punditry, along with endorsement work which took him on the UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour with Heineken in Cairo this week.
Locals were tipped off that Giggs would be visiting the Egyptian Museum and chaos ensued. He had hundreds in tow as he tried to weave through the crowd to view the collection of pharaonic artefacts. The tour guide could barely be heard over the shouts and cameras.
Otherwise, Giggs is relaxed, he says, a five-a-side game with ITV staff while away at the European Championship being testament to that.
All very nice indeed but you sense when talking to him that if the right managerial offer came in tomorrow, everything else would be dropped immediately. Contact is understood to have been made by seven clubs this season. Intriguingly, he remains in dialogue with only one of them.
‘The only one I can really say is Swansea,’ Giggs laughs. ‘I feel like I’ve done my apprenticeship with two years of brilliant education under Louis. If the right club and the right chairman comes along, I’ll be ready.
‘I’d rather go into a decent League One or Championship team, who’ve got the right ideas and the right aspirations than a Premier League team who haven’t.’
Giggs has leaned on Ferguson and West Bromwich Albion’s Tony Pulis for advice and believes that taking steps on to the managerial ladder are more difficult for ex-players who achieved it all. It preys on his mind that the tenure of managers in their first job is becoming ever shorter.
‘It frustrates me when you hear people say: “You can’t just expect to walk into any job”,’ he adds.
‘Well, I think it works against us actually. It can stop you getting jobs. It can hinder, not help. They see the player rather than the coach.
‘That’s understandable, because I was playing for so long and only coached for two years. But I’ve been preparing for it for ten years because I started my badges at 30. It really doesn’t matter to me where.
‘It’s a minefield out there though. You see Warren Joyce, who I worked with for so long. Four months in a job (at Wigan) — and he’s a very good coach. Very easily your reputation can be ruined in that first job.’
Giggs checks and smirks. ‘You’re talking me out of it here!’
He thinks back to that three-week caretaker spell after David Moyes’ sacking in 2014. The fact that a 1-0 home defeat by Sunderland is his abiding memory serves as an indicator he could be cut out for management.
The two years with Van Gaal were by no means smooth. His admiration for the Dutchman is clear, but the pair did not always share the same vision. When the top role was briefly his, Giggs told the squad to return to playing the ‘United Way’, but those principles cannot be applied to Van Gaal’s reign.
Giggs does, however, suggest there were mitigating factors — not least player turn-over — and relays that Van Gaal always attacked at previous clubs.
The Dutchman did more to feed his No 2’s management desire than we realise. ‘A taskmaster,’ remembers Giggs. ‘The detail, the way he looked at the game, I’d never really seen that before. It was two years and it was like spending five years with someone else because it was so intense.
‘He delegated. Telling a player what to do never fazed me because I’d been doing it for five to 10 years anyway. Does that player need a dressing down? Does that one need an arm around him?’
VAN GAAL certainly needed comforting when jilted in the immediate aftermath of last May’s FA Cup triumph — shortly after Ferguson had joined in the dressing-room celebrations. According to Giggs, Ferguson ‘consciously distanced himself’ until they had lifted some silverware to avoid creating undue pressure.
He has not taken Mourinho’s very open offer of popping down after matches this year, either, only accepting when United lifted the EFL Cup in February.
He will be in among it again in Stockholm on May 24 should they win the Europa League final, and Mourinho’s forwards now really need to concentrate on saving their campaign.
‘They’re probably easier games in Europe. You’d fancy Jose and United against those. Ask the others and they just want to avoid United,’ Giggs reasons ahead of Thursday’s quarter-final trip to Anderlecht.
‘Ask any United fan — if you get into the Champions League and win a trophy, it’s a good season. They are still on track to do that.
‘There are only two or three clubs who are going to win a trophy and get into the Champions League.
‘We should judge Jose at the end of the season.’
It’s a minefield, but I’d rather manage a lower league club who have the right idea than a Premier League club who haven’t