David Moyes Reveals The Truth About Managing The Worlds Greatest Teams
嘉宾：David Moyes
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§01Transcript — part 1
They would be out screaming at you at half time, they'd be screaming at you at the end of the game. David the Messiah voice. One of the best known football managers across the globe. Building teams with a clear identity. So where am I looking and who am I talking to? I was desperate to be successful as a manager and I had 11 years at Everton where we were finding it really difficult to break into the top four. The phone rang, it was Sir Alex. And he said, I'm retiring and you're the next manager of Manchester United.
No interview, not saying, would you like to be? I met Edward on the next day, back to his house again, and we met the Glazers. It was three days, and that was as simple as that. To get that offer from the greatest manager maybe there ever was was a great compliment. But maybe if I'd really looked into it in more detail and more depth, there was a huge change going to have to take place. I trusted Manchester United. Do you feel like that trust was let down?
Definitely. But my biggest regret was... We start with the story that has dominated the front pages, the sacking of David Moyes. How did you find out that you're losing your job? Media. Oh, really? If you've got any class or any style, you have to give bad news well. What are those steps forward to get West Ham competing at the very top of the table? I want to build a new West Ham. A lot of supporters might not like the thought of that. When you look at where West Ham is now, do you worry about losing your job?
I've got to say, David, take me back to the context that I need to understand in order to understand you. Take me back to Glasgow, 1960s. Yes. I was in a really good family who were really important and you'll probably hear me talking a lot about it now. But we were a family who stayed in the west end of Glasgow in a tenement building. And we used to have to go up the tenement and people who don't know what a tenement is, a tenement is what we would probably think a block of flats and you go up the tenement.
And they were never in Glasgow at that time very, very good to look at. People looked down on them a little bit. But it was a great upbringing for me. It allowed me to play my football out in the street, which at that time was something which everybody considered, you know, street footballers. Everybody played football in the street. And everybody in Glasgow did play football in the street, played in the park. So I started in Glasgow in the West End, and that was probably where me and my family grew up.
Your father's also called David. He certainly is, yeah. What did he do for a living? And how did that influence you? Well, this is probably, it's a really good question to me, for me, is because my dad actually was a teacher, but he worked in the shipyards in Glasgow, which was really important. So he worked as a shipbuilder and then he went on to become a teacher in a college. But meanwhile, what he'd done in part of his other job was that he was an amateur football manager.
And there was a very famous boys club team in Glasgow called Drum Chapel Amateurs, which was very famous. And really, all my memories come of my dad running one of the teams at Drum Chapel Amateurs now. For the people who don't know, you know, there's people like Sir Alex Ferguson played for Drum Chapel Amateurs. There was people like Asa Hartford played for Drum Chapel Amateurs. John Ward was a Scottish international. So it was a very, very famous boys club.
My dad also ran the college where he teached. My dad was a teacher at Annie's Land College, which was a college in Glasgow. And he took the team every Saturday morning. And then he took the amateur football team every Saturday afternoon. You've got to remember, this was all as well. There was no money involved in this. So really, part of my life was seeing my dad grow up as a football manager for amateurs. But meanwhile, his real job was that he was a teacher at Tanninsland College.
Did that make you want to pursue that as a career at that time? Or what kind of influence has that had on you in hindsight? Well, I think when I look back now, I'd say to you, I think your parents have huge influence in everything you do for different reasons. Mine definitely did. But I don't think when you're growing up as a boy, you're thinking that, you know, I'm going to be influenced too much by my dad or my mum. You don't think that till you get a bit older yourself.
And when you look back, you go, wow, I can't believe that I'm quite similar to my dad or I can't believe that I followed my mum. And going back to that, you know, my mum was part of it as well. My mum had to wash the strips and hang them up outside and, you know, and then she'd have to wash them and she'd wash them and iron them and I'd be folding them and putting them away. So probably from a really young boy, I was watching my dad and my mum. help young boys at that time, you know, fulfil, go for a game of football.
Hopefully they were all hoping to go on to become professional footballers, but if not, try and be successful playing for the boys team in Glasgow at that time. One of the things we do tend to pick up from our parents, from what I've seen, and I certainly did myself, was I guess like principles and values of like how to approach life and how to deal with life. What were those principles and values that your parents imparted on you directly or indirectly from observation about life and how to deal with it and how to confront it?
Well, I think your parents will always influence you in some way. I was sent to church when I was younger. So I went to church. A lot of people were. And I think that probably had an influence as well in its own way in the early days. But I think more to do with schooling, more to do with education and what they try to do. And to be fair... None of them, I was never pushed on anything. I was never pushed to, you know, to be that well-educated. I was never pushed to be a great football player.
They were just encouraging, really, and all was there to support. So I had parents who really let me grow up the way I chose to do so, but everything was guided by them. You know, respect, you know, trust, you know, trying to be truthful all the time. All those things, I think, come into a good relationship. Did you ever have a, you kind of suggested there that they weren't necessarily like pushy parents necessarily, but did you ever have any idea of what career or aspiration would make them proud?
If I'd asked you, you know, what does your mum or dad want you to be when you're older, when you were younger? What would you have said? I think my dad would have definitely said, I hope you're a footballer. You know, I think that would, I think my dad would have always probably thought that. He'd a great lover of football as well. But I think they were always really supportive in anything I wanted to do. But I think, you know, as I got on and I got to an age where I was starting to get closer, I don't know, 12 or 13, I think football was probably my biggest sort of love and what I wanted to do.
And I was more interested in either watching football, playing football. And that was probably, they probably saw that round about that age as well. And is it sort of 12 years old, you were in Celtic's youth system? Yeah, what it was is that time Celtic had a boys club. And you have to remember, my dad also, as I said, ran a very, very famous boys team, or one of the teams in Glasgow, from Chapel Amateurs. But I went to Celtic Boys Club and I employed with Celtic Boys Club from when I was about 12 to 16 until I went on.
But they were brilliant years I had there. You know, my time at Celtic, which, you know, came after as a player and as a, you know, a senior professional, not senior professional, but a professional, I should say, But the young period when I was at Celtic Boys Club was, I can only remember being winning things and being really successful and, you know, representing, you know, Glasgow schools as a schoolboy, representing Scotland schools as a schoolboy, international.
So I had really, really good days in the early days, probably from 14, 15 onwards. Did you, if I'd asked you, even at that age, so say when you were 16, if I'd asked you about your ambitions in football... What would you have responded with? I hope that I might have been good enough to become a player. I'm not sure I would be. And I would love to be involved in football. I always used to think that, you know, I'm hoping that maybe I could run an amateur team or I could be involved.
I could maybe, might be good enough to take a junior team, you know, might get paid a little bit of money. You know, maybe I'd become a youth team coach for somebody if, you know, if I wasn't going to be a football player. I always thought even at that time when we were growing up, there was lots of youth clubs. So we would go to a school youth club because it was where you would get a game of table tennis, you'd play pool, the gym might be there, and you'd play five-a-side football with whoever was there.
So I always thought, well, maybe I might be able to work in a youth club or something if I didn't get any more better than that. So those early days, there was no guarantee that you were going to become a footballer. Every boy really wanted to become a footballer. What did you learn from your dad as a manager? Is there anything even today where you think, I think I've got that from my dad or that trait or that? Yeah. Planning. Yeah. Organization.
Commitment. And if I just started planning, you know, at that time, there was no mobile phones then, so it was the phones. So he'd be phoning all the players to say, look, we're playing on Saturday. I want you to meet at 12.30. We're meeting wherever it was. And at that time, they all had to come at times with the same, with a shirt and tie on. They had to bring a bag. You know, they all had to come with the same bag. Shirt and tie, you've got to remember, this is Glasgow in a time when people had to turn up with collar and tie on.
And if you didn't turn up with your collar and tie on, you might not get selected for a game. So small things like this, if you're talking about maybe disciplines or ways you were brought up, I think possibly I picked up a lot of the traits probably early on. Why does that matter? Why do the small things matter? Shirt and tie. Do you think they matter, I guess, is another question. Yeah, I do. I think they really do matter. I think sometimes they mean... And I have to say, if you jumped on to this, my senior time, I think they've always looked better.
I think people have always looked better. They dress well and they're correct. They look prepared for the games. I jumped to Manchester United just quickly and say, you know, Manchester United... had a rule which Sir Alex had that they would always turn up for away games and shirt and tie. Now, most teams would rather turn up the track so that the players can come more casual, but Manchester United always turned up with a shirt and tie on, which I thought was a great thing because they wanted to show what they were, wanted to come out there and say, look the way we approach it, you look at this Manchester United.
I've got to say, I really admired that part of it. It's interesting. It's an interesting small psychological advantage, isn't it, to some degree? I guess it's a statement of professionalism and attention to detail before the ball's even kicked. It is. And, you know, so that takes me back. So you're saying is, no, maybe Sir Alex, who played with Room Chapel Amateurs, maybe had picked it up from his time at Room Chapel Amateurs, you know, the way they had to turn up with shirt and ties on and they had a blazer on.
And again, this was just an amateur football team in Glasgow. You played with many, many clubs over your almost 600 career games, across a variety of different divisions. That time working as a player across multiple clubs and multiple divisions, what did that teach you? And it's always useful to get a variety of different experiences that you can kind of create your own perspective on the world. But what did that teach you, those 600 games as a player?
What are the fundamentals then? The fundamentals were I learnt so much. But my early days when I started at Celtic was probably engraved in me more than anything because Celtic had an incredible tradition of winning. Now obviously Celtic had to win with style as well. Celtic were the biggest club with Rangers in Glasgow, in Scotland I should say. And because of that Celtic had to... to win was always so important. So I could see there was the first team, there was the reserves, there was the youth team.
And all the managers were under pressure to win. Then if you did win, then it was, and what was the score? You won one, nothing. That's not good enough. You need to win. You need to win three or four, nothing. You need to win by more goals. And how did you play? We didn't play that well, we scored a known, it was a scarpy. Not good enough, you have to win with style. So I think my early days I was brought up with brilliant footballers, people who showed me, I don't know if you want to call it a philosophy because philosophy might be much deeper and might offer much more.
But it gave me something where I had to say, well, I have to win. I have to find a way of winning. You know, if I can win with style, that's even better. But more importantly, I have to find a way of winning. And I picked that up probably from my early days at Celtic and I wasn't there that long. Not that I wasn't there that long, but I wasn't there that long probably as a senior player. I moved on and ended up bobbing around the championship and a couple of lower leagues in England for a long time.
But I come across some really great managers. I come across some which weren't so good. But you know, I always try to be respectful to any of them because that came from my background and my upbringing. But I also was trying to pick up everything I could. When I was 20, I had already qualified as a full-time, full A-license coach at the time. You know, to be a coach, you had to have an A-license, it was called. Now you have to have a pro-license, but you have to.
It was an A-license. I'd qualified as a coach when I was 20, 21, which was unusual. The reason I'd done that was because, The coaching courses were obviously full of really experienced managers, lots of players trying to get into management. The only reason I went and done it was hoping that I would become a better player. I thought that if I went on these coaching courses, it'll help me become even better as a player. And I had a really good career, but not quite at the elite level, which I really wanted to be.
Whose idea was that, to go and do a coaching course at 20 years old to improve yourself as a player? My own, because I thought that maybe I'd find out more about it. But I have to say, there was a thing when we were young players. We were, when we were 16 at Celtic, we were sent to the courses to help the coaches. So we were called the runners. So we were down there to do all the running, you know. You had to do all the running, you had to be a fullback, you had to be a midfield player and all the practices were put on for the coaches.
And, you know, Scotland had great, great coaches at the time, you know, people like Sir Alex, Jim McLean, Walter Smith. I could go on and on. Scotland had brilliant coaches without naming the likes of Jock Steen and Bill Shankly. You could go on and on. George Graham, for example. So I was sent down by Celtic and I was one of the runners for a couple of years. And once I was down, I said, I want more of this. I want to be around football people.
I loved listening to them. I hoped that I would impress some of them who were managers of really big clubs at the time. And that's what I thought, well, no, I'm going to go and do my badges myself and went on to do them in Scotland. Your time at Celtic in the first team, when you got signed there, it was three years, right, you were in Celtic? Yeah, yeah. You then got to experience other cultures and clubs, but you cite Celtic as having that sort of winning mentality that some clubs just have where they're almost, you know, they just, they get used to, they develop the habit of winning.
Throughout your career, you've been in clubs that have the habit of winning, but also clubs that maybe have struggled in the opposite direction and don't have that culture of we always win every game. When you think about the clubs you've worked in that have that habit of winning like Celtic did, what is that? How is, where does that come from? And what does it look like and feel like? It looks like you walk in every morning with your chest out and your head high and you're sort of confident in what you're doing.
There's a motivation to keep it going, not to let it drop. There's something about having to continue to improve, to stay at the top, that you can't just do what you're doing, which is going to keep you there forever. You have to keep trying to find a way of doing it. I did see that and I feel that and I've seen it at other clubs since. But I have to say, I think on the journey to probably where I am today is probably more that seeing a lot of the other side as well is actually the bit which, you know, I've been at clubs where I've been getting relegated.
I've been at clubs where I can't win. I've been at clubs where, you know, it's not going well. I've been at clubs where there's, you know, it's not been as powerful as, say, a club with Celtic. So I think, I think you have to see it all round for you to give yourself the best chance. And I keep saying this, you know, to do, to get to become a football manager, I don't think there's any one plan. You could be the best player on the planet and not become a football manager.
you could be someone who's never played the game and become incredibly successful as a football manager. So I don't think there's necessarily one way you do it. I'm really intrigued by this, this idea of like cultures at clubs and within teams and how you can just feel it almost when, when a club has that momentum and they were winning team and when they don't, um, on the, on the contrary, then when we're thinking about teams that are struggling and that aren't performing well, um, What are the signs of that?
Now, Rio said something really interesting. Was it Rio? Was it Gary Neville said something interesting to me? He said that when he was at Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson only came into the training ground dressing room twice. And he said he never needed to come in there because the culture was in there. So if like when Berbatov came over and wasn't fitting the culture, the players would correct him. He then says when he went to QPR, when the manager left the changing room, everyone was talking about their wages and where they're going next.
You can feel that like... Yeah, there is a difference. I actually think the culture, I mean, that team you're talking about at Manchester United had incredible players and, you know, I wouldn't say self-made because they had a great manager, but if you look now, if I moved to just now, I'd be saying there's much more communication in life now. I came from a background where it was really tough, the Scottish managers, you know, probably the working background we came from, they would be out screaming at you at half-time, they'd be screaming at you at the end of the game, you know, they would be, They would be after you if you didn't do well.
I don't think that culture's there. And I think it's changed completely in Scottish managers. And if you look at Scottish managers, probably over history, Scotland had lots of managers in the English Premier League, for example. Very few now. And it might be that we're having to change your culture. So going back to a little bit what you were talking about, Rio said, I think there was a period where the players looked after themselves or they could take the hard-hitting...
hair dryer treatment if you want to call it that now I think it's a completely different culture now whether we've changed or whether I feel as if management is not necessarily in that form I don't think I don't know maybe you Steve you'd tell me even better you're head of businesses would you go in and be screaming blue murder at your staff now Do you know what? The thing, one of my, actually I think it's an advantage is I didn't grow up in that culture.
So I've never known it. I've never known the prospect of like coming into work and like, whereas you hear about it in some old businesses where like the CEO would come in and throw things and throw the table over and stuff. I just never grew up in that environment. I grew up in a sort of a societal expectation that a manager is like, might be tough and sometimes, but is fairly nice. There's no like big glass office that I sit in away from my team members.
It's a different world these days. As you were talking about there, you said that it's kind of a different world in management. You've been in the job since you were, I guess, 20, in your early 20s. You're 59 now? I'm 59 and I've probably been in management since I was early 30s when I started and then. So 25, 30 years, you talk about the change that you've seen in the approach that is effective now. What is effective now? If once upon a time Scottish managers could come in and hairdryer it and scream or whatever, whatever, how has the approach changed in your view?
Well, let me tell you, I remember one of the managers coming in to the dressing room and all we said is, don't look up. Just look at the floor, look at your boots, look down, because if you catch his eyes, he's going to come for you. So it used to be, don't look up so that he couldn't have any eye contact with you and you had to, you know, and... You'd probably put your head in the towel so that you couldn't see. Because that was the way it was.
It was that. And I think that I probably had a lot of that in me when I first started. But the difference now is I think we're in a different, and maybe yourself, maybe you'll understand, it's a different era. So as a coach and as a manager and as a man now, I think you need to find a way of how you're moving on with that or you'd be left behind. And I've got to say, I think in my position, I've got to admit, I have to keep trying to keep up, renew things, invest in more work and find out how it's going on.
There's so many new things. And don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean that I've still not got the bit of anger in me when I think the players need it. And I actually think that I think they like it. I think sometimes they like it. I think people want to be told the truth. And I think one of the worst things you can do to people is, is I think if you keep praising people all the time, I think it makes you soft as well. So I think there's a level of praise you can give people, but I think you've also got to be really tough with your praise as well.
And I actually think that, As I've got older, I've become better in giving praise. I think there's some of my players, I'm sure at Everton, would say that I very rarely gave them praise because I was always looking for better from them. You know, over the last, I don't know, I've been in business, what, 10 years or something. Not as long as you in terms of management, but even I've started to notice some like warning signs in people. So like, if I see this in the interview process, I go, well, I saw this before and then it ended in this way for like pattern recognition.
You've talked a lot about, and I've read a lot about your scouting process, how you find great talent, great players. What are the things you look for in the things that you consider to be warning signs? I always wanted someone who I thought, was putting in effort. Okay. I always thought that... And you might say, well, how can that come in front of many other things? Well, I can think of many, probably you, and you'll think of plenty of schoolboys, friends, who were really talented players, but maybe they weren't dedicated, didn't put in the effort to, didn't do the work.
I think if you don't put the effort and the dedication to it, then... And the other thing that I use a lot is, you know, if you don't love the game completely... then you'll probably find it really difficult. I think you'll find it really difficult to become a manager if you don't love the game with, or have real longevity. I think you could be a player and maybe get through your career 10, 15 years as a player, with maybe without loving football.
But I think if you want to go longer, I think you've badly got to love the business. When I became manager of Everton, but I did it before, I used to always meet the players, and I still do if I can. You nearly wanted to see their eyes, to see... I need you to work hard. I'm needing you to know to do this job for the team. I'd like to see, are you going to take that? I'm going to be critical of you and I want you to get better. Are you happy with it?
You nearly wanted to put the questions over to them to see if they were going to take it. Did you? I did to many players. And I've got to say, we've had quite a few over the time, which I've got to say, who I've had in my house, who I've had in offices, and we've probably not taken them. Sometimes because, a bit like you said, sometimes something just makes you go, that's just not what I quite wanted to hear. And that might only be a gut and it might not.
It might have no reason in the, some of the boys I'm talking about have gone on to be superstars and play for other clubs. But something at the moment can only give you that little bit of gut feeling if you think it sounds like it's going to fit for you. And I'm not saying you get it right, but I think at that time you have to have your own sort of things where you say, no, I'm not going to change. This is what I want to do and I want to keep it this way.
And I've missed out on some. How does that process work? If you're looking, let's say you're looking for a striker, what's the process? You know, because we've heard some, I don't mean, my only understanding of like signing players is playing like football manager on the PlayStation or whatever. But I have, in my head, you have all these scouts, they produce reports. And then do you know what position you want to fill? Do you go to the scout or what happens?
I think you, in the main, the scouts will probably bring them to you. I mean, like... If it's somebody playing for one of the teams locally or that and is available and you think there's a chance then you'll probably try and do your homework. You'll try and, you know, obviously statistically you'll try and get it right. You'll try and look at their strengths and weaknesses. You'll take into consideration maybe the price he's going to cost, where he fits in for you, what he can do.
But the ones you don't know are what you're looking for your scouts to bring to you. And quite a lot in modern football, it's the agents who are bringing them, you know, because the agents are playing such a huge part. Now, whether you see it as a positive or a negative, they're playing such a huge part behind the scenes in football at the moment. And these people will bring it. Obviously, if you're trying to sell something, you're always going to talk it up.
But in the end, you know, we would or I would always try and get my scouts to go through it. They would probably say, yes, this is worth coming and looking at. Come in, we should go and sit and we'll sit for a few hours watching. If we wanted to take it even further, then we would go into much further detail with events. They probably start trying to find out. people who know the boy or has played with the boy and try and get a bit of his character background would try and find out more about, you know, is he the right type?
You know, is he a good boy? Is he a good trainer? Is he going to be disruptive in the training? I think all those things are really, really part of it. I don't think any football manager... wants people who are not going to fit in and work with it. And I guess, again, I'll reverse back to business. Probably you're the same. You don't want people who are not going to fit in with what you've got. You want somebody who's going to come in and blend in and be part of it.
What was your best ever signing? But I always say, Nigel Martin assigned Nigel Martin, the goalkeeper who was at Leeds United, and he was on a free from Leeds United, and we took him to Everton at the time. And it's only because he was a free, but not only that, he was a great goalkeeper. Obviously, he had been an England goalkeeper. He was probably near at the end of the time, but he gave me about four, five years of stability. But see, when people talk about signing, your best signing, over the time of now being, I've made that many signings I've got, you know, it would be, it's really pretty shameful of me even to name one because I've got so many that I could say.
You don't have to, I would not ask you to name your worst signing, but where have you frequently got it wrong when signing players? Eh... No, what I think you do is I think it's the ones I've missed. The ones who you've said, nah, I don't think he's quite good enough. I think I'm going to, don't think I want, and I've had hundreds of them. Who's the one you missed the most? Well, just recently, because we've been talking about it, you know, we've been...
Alvarez, who's just played for Argentina in the World Cup, you know, I brought in a new scout who says, look, you should go for Alvarez at River Plate. And I watched him, I watched him, he's a very good, really good technician. I thought he'd done so many good things as a centre-fogger, but I thought, maybe not quite the one we want. Maybe he didn't quite... We had Mickey Antonio who had been doing very well. I thought, I don't know if he's... And you see sometimes the players change in six months.
I have to say there's other players like that who you don't take and don't go on to be a real success. But that one at the moment is just one because it was probably only a year ago where I decided, no, I don't think it's probably the one we're going to take. It's the same in business. No matter how many people you hire, it's always still guessing. And I was speaking to my friend, Gary Vaynerchuk about this, who's hired about 5,000 people. And he said to me, he says, you know, I've been in this game for 30 years and I'm still just guessing.
§02Transcript — part 2
Because we can come up with all the principles and systems we want, but how someone, people change, but also how they present in an interview can be drastically different to how they present in six months time when they're comfortable. You know what's really interesting, I'm asking you. I hear now and I hear, because there's so many jobs change in our industry, you see us, how do you pick a good football coach now? How would you pick a football manager, whatever way you want, but how would you pick a good football manager?
What would give him the owners or the people who are doing it, how are they picking it? Because again, what I said is, yes, of course, we can think of some real special people who would be in that group. But if you're a lesser club trying to pick a new talent, why would you get it? Has he got the drive? Has he got the energy? Has he got the love for the game to stay with it? Has he got an idea that he wants to go further and he's going to put the work in?
It's really hard and sometimes you can't find him and I get the feeling it's the same in industry now as well. Yeah, yeah. I think the more I've hired, the more I've realised that it's just guessing, which I think people will be surprised at because people will think that you'll get progressively better or your confidence will grow. My confidence has actually fallen with experience. Yes. So what that means for me is that when I hire someone and I know it's not right, just very quickly have to make a decision because the worst thing is indecision, right?
Wasting too long. That's it. We have the same situation we're talking about is we're buying players and we're spending a lot of money. Like you are, and then you're saying is, and you're saying, no, but you can't do this, but we don't think you can do that. And at times, maybe the older you get, you would think it becomes easier. It actually becomes harder the more you're in it because you've probably seen the good ones, the bad ones. Yeah, we followed this path to try and get a good one, but not so good anymore.
We're going to follow another path. So I've got to say, hiring people and bringing them in is not an easy thing to do. It's slightly different, I guess, in business because as the CEO... I, in business, usually get to make the decision about who you're hiring. I mean, sometimes, of course, managers at low levels make that decision. But in football, there's often a conversation that the board or the owner has stepped in and has told you who to sign and who to buy.
Well, I think that's one of the things really in football where you would say, If an owner was going to do that, you'd say, no, come on, it's not right. It's part and parcel of football now. It's rife in football where a lot of owners are making the signings instead of the manager. Has the owner ever asked you to sign a player? Eh, yes, yeah, they have, yeah. What did you say to them? I've tried to say, I've said no to it, you know, and I've said, no, it's not the way I do the work.
Now, if the players are good, I'd be saying, great, bring me them in. But then what we would do is if we get the name of a player, then we would try and do our homework and try and do other stuff. And by the way, we might be wrong. We're accepting that. But if we follow the correct process or what we believe is the correct process, And it still comes out, no, we have to go with what we say. Now, if the process says, hey, by the way, we're hearing he's a good player, he's scoring lots of goals, he's young, resellable, if it doesn't work.
If all those other points come up, then we're saying, oh, wait a minute, maybe we have to think about it. But I think really trusting your process and hoping that the longevity I've had will probably hope that you've made more right decisions than wrong decisions by the time you get round to making the final decision. I guess one of the things you can control, which doesn't have to be a guessing exercise, is the culture that they join. So if the culture that they join is good, then there's a higher chance of them being successful as a player, as a new signing.
I agree. How do you do that at the clubs you're managing now, West Ham? How have you done that in the past to make sure the culture is right? And what is that culture? Yeah. Well, I think for me, the biggest one was When I was at West Ham the first time we came in, we thought we'd done a good job and we kept the team up. We were asked to come in, we kept the team up and we didn't get the job. And then another manager came in and we were out of work for a year.
So then to be fair to the owner, David Sullivan, he phoned me about company, says, would you come in? I says, yeah, love to come back. No problem. I felt I had to do a bit more at West Ham or had to try. I keep using it and I say it openly now. I want to build a new West Ham. So what does a new West Ham mean? Well, a lot of people, a lot of supporters might not like the thought of that. But West Ham have moved to a new stadium. It's not been appreciated by everybody.
But that's what we're going to be, it looks like, for the next 100 years. That's what it looks like. The club's going to be there. So we need to make the best we possibly can of it. You know, I want to change the... I want there to be lots of young kids coming to West Ham. East End of London's a huge area full of West Ham supporters. A lot of poverty in the area. West Ham offer great ticket prices, great opportunities. They do brilliant work in the community, West Ham and East End of London.
They really do. And I want to encourage all the young kids. Now, what do you need? You need exciting players so that the young kids want to buy a jersey so that they're not following the top two or three teams in the country. And you want them to come. So I've tried to change I've tried to change the team, but you know, deep down, I'd really like to say I'm trying to make West Ham better. And it used to always do, other people, I was a manager at Everton, I was manager at Man United and other clubs, folk would say, ah, you get a flaky West Ham, you know, they're not that reliable and you don't know what West Ham team's going to turn up.
Well, I want to change that culture. There's so much room for improvement at West Ham. You know, I think it's got great potential to improve. And I hope that you get, I get the opportunity to keep it going. We've had a couple of really, really good years. Success for West Ham, it's been success. And it's how we continue that success now, how we build on it. And I think if you're in business, I think you'll accept it. You know, quite often you have a couple of years or a good year and then you might not have it quite so good because we're a little bit like that at the moment.
So I'm hoping that culturally, I think we have changed. I think we've changed a load of things at West Ham. We're not milky, we're not flaky. I think there's a different atmosphere in the East End of London regarding how people see West Ham. I like the way we've done it, but we've also got some exciting, really exciting young players who those young supporters I talked about could follow. What are those next steps then? If you reflect back on what you did at Everton, you took them from being that kind of, you know, happy to survive club to in your last, I think in your last eight years, you finished in the top.
You last seven years, you finished in the top, one of the two. You last eight years, you finished in the top eight, seven times or something along those lines. They became a consistent, competitive team at the top end of the table. When you look at where West Ham is now, as we sit here now 16th in the table, what are those? But after two amazing years in the two previous years where West Ham were absolutely fireworks, to be fair. Dangerous, very, very, very dangerous team to play against.
I'm not a Manchester United fan, so I remember the last two years have been really, really incredible for West Ham. what are those steps forward now to get West Ham to being that team that is competing at the very top of the table? And I find it so interesting that, in fact, when you answer this question, you don't just think, oh, we need to buy more players. It's kind of more of a holistic, wider, broader job that needs to be done. Yeah, I actually think that we've bought more players and I think that, you know, I've gone out there and said, this is what I'm doing.
But I think... Sometimes I think in football, not that you need to break it, but we had a really good team for the last two years. But we had a few, Mark Noble was coming to them, one or two other players were coming to them. We had to change, and we were actually short in numbers. We were really short. The players have done it. I felt as if I nearly had to break it up a little bit because I had seen signs. Now, my experience, my longevity was telling me, If I don't do this now, then I'm going to feel I'm going to be caught out.
Now, we probably didn't do quite as well from January on last year. That was my feeling. We had some brilliant nights. We got to semi-final European football. We had been challenging all years. I mean, in the last game of the season, we finished seventh, but we were 10 minutes away from finishing sixth above Manchester United. So the margins were incredibly small and all this, but I felt that, Now with the age I'm nearly saying is, I don't really give a shit now, I've got to say I'm not gonna get many more goes at this.
So if I don't make a go to it, I don't really do what I think is right and what I want to do, then I'll regret it. So there's part of me said, yeah, we had to bring in new players and we've gone out and we've put our head on the block and said, here we go, brought these new players in. Now what I really need is hope that I can get a little bit of time to settle and get them settled in. I think we've brought in good players. I think we have got a better squad.
Maybe not a better team at this exact time than what we had last year, but we've definitely got better players, which I believe will show that in the coming months. Do you worry about that? Losing, losing your job. Is that something that like sits in your mind? I, I wouldn't, in my business, I mean, other than when I was at social and I had a board of directors, we're a public company. So technically they could fire me. It's not something that I think about.
Like if I'm, if I perform badly as a, an executive, I, the company goes down. So there's no one that's going to cut, you know what I mean? That's right. Well, what I'd say is, I think as a young manager, I worry much more. Yeah. I think now in the position I'm in now, I worry far, far less because, you know, It's in my blood. I love the game. I want to be here. I'm enjoying what I'm doing. But it wouldn't be the end of the earth if something went wrong for me now where I'm at.
But my pride, my determination is that I want to be successful and I want to do a really good job for West Ham. So, but I think when you're younger, if you look now at young managers, young managers find it very difficult. If you don't do well in your first job, maybe like business, you know, in business, maybe you have a go and something fails, nothing quite works. You're nearly tentative. Do you think I could go again? Maybe nobody will help invest with me, whatever it may be.
So it's so important you do get it right when you do go in. But going back to, if I just have to, because I want to mention it. I think you need people who are really supportive at the start. I had a great owner at Preston North End, a couple of great owners who really supported me. When I went to West Ham, I had great men who helped me at that time as well. And I think sometimes you need to be a bit lucky on your journey. If you turn up at a club where an owner's making the signings or you're not there, he's only going to give you half a dozen games to show what you can do.
you're probably going to find that it's going to be very difficult to succeed. So maybe a bit lucky at the start, but I worried much more when I was younger than I would do now. That success that you want the time to achieve at West Ham, what is that success? What is the goal for West Ham? If we're sat here in, you know, let's say 10 years, five years time, that's too long in football these days, five years time, what's the goal? I think we've been successful.
Yeah. I think West Ham have been successful in the last two years. And what you, no, really the ones who are the great winners and the serial winners are the ones who once they get a bit of success, all they want is more of it. I'd love to be sitting here and bringing my trophies in here in front of you and putting them up and saying, yeah, look at these trophies. I've not got that. What have I got? I've got periods of success. My teams have done well.
We've got to Europe, you know, got to a cup final here and there. We've got to semi-finals. So not everybody in the industry can have success. Not everybody can be walking about with their medals. And at the moment I have not. But I still believe there's still a big chance that I can do that. Is that your KPI of success? It's probably not now. It's not now because I actually think... Staying in the job wouldn't be a bit... Longevity is a really important thing in any work.
If you can stay in it and you can... It's a big thing. It's showing that you've done a good enough job. But, you know, I've been fortunate enough with a few Manager of the Year awards over the years. You know, the last few years I've been nominated for it. But I've said many times, I'd swap it for one of Josie Mourinho's lemon medals if I got the chance, you know, or one of his trophies all day long. So... that's still got to be what I'm driving to do.
Now, I'm not going forever because I'm getting older and I don't want to be as old as Sir Alex or Roy Hodgson when they finish, those sort of people. But I've still got the energy, I've still got the drive. I feel as if I've got a good team and I feel as if I'm still capable of keeping up with those younger ones. Sir Alex. Sir Alex. There's been a lot said about Sir Alex. I talk about him a lot because I've interviewed so many of his former players.
There was a lot of rumours that he went to your house and asked you to become the manager of Manchester United. No, he took me to his house. Oh, he took you to his house? Yeah. And actually, I'll tell you a story, Steve. It wasn't long after I'd turned 50 and my wife had bought me a watch and actually we had gone through to Manchester to the jurors. I needed to get a link taken out and it was actually in Altingham by all places. I was in Altingham.
And the phone rang and it was... It was Sir Alex. And I saw the waiter, I said, oh, bloody hell, it's Alex on the phone. And I thought, oh, he's gonna want one of my players, or he's gonna want me to take one of his players. What's, no, he's coming on to say something. And he said, where are you? I says, I'm in Manchester. He says, well, right, come out to the house when you're ready, will you? I said, and that's a poor Sir Alex accent probably, so don't it?
No, don't it? And I said to the wife, I can't do it. I'm in my jeans. I couldn't go to Sir Alex with a pair of jeans on. There's no way. So I'm saying, what am I gonna do? Did I go down to Marks and Spencer's and buy a pair of trousers before I go to Sir Alex? You know? So she's saying, away you go, just go and get on with it and do it. So anyway, dropped my wife off at the shopping centre and I drove out to Sir Alex's house. And I went in and he says, in you come.
very nice house and he's got a lovely sort of room, sports room up the stairs and he says, want a cup of tea? He says, I took up a cup of tea. And he said, I'm retiring and you're the next manager of Manchester United. No interview, no telling me, not saying would you like to be? I'm retiring and I nearly slipped down. It was a letter, so I nearly slipped down because obviously nobody knew that Sir Alex was retiring. Nobody knew, nobody even suggested or thought about it.
And I nearly slipped down when I heard him say that. And then he says, you're the next manager of Manchester United. And I just sort of went, yeah, well, no, okay. I wasn't going to turn around. I didn't think I would ever say no. I don't even know I was in a position to say no. And that was as simple as that. We got underway, he said. And there was only maybe, and to be fair, there was only four weeks to go to the end of the season, maybe five weeks to go to the end of the season.
I was coming out of contract to Everton and I was really wanting to be respectful to them. And actually, my next game was against Liverpool. on the Sunday, I think I met Sir Alex in the midweek on the Wednesday or something, on the Sunday. And I knew that if we had got a draw with Liverpool, we would probably finish above them in the league. And it was at Anfield and we did, we got a draw and we did finish above them. So it didn't have any effect on, on what I was doing at Everton.
But the big thing was to say, and then the next day he said, I want you to come back to my house tomorrow. Ed Woodward's going to come and see you. He's going to be the new chief executive, who he says David Gill's leaving as well. That was it, and I met Ed Woodward the next day. And then the next day, back to his house again, and we met the Glazers. And so it was three days, three days where I dropped back to his house. The biggest problem I had was, he said, and you can't tell anybody about me retiring.
He says, nobody knows. That's no problem. He says, tell your wife, but nobody. So I couldn't tell my kids. I couldn't tell my dad. I couldn't tell my dad that I was going to get the job. I was getting the job. So that, that for me was how it happened. And when I look back now, To get that offer from probably, arguably, the greatest manager maybe there ever was, was a great compliment. But maybe if I'd really looked into it in more detail and more depth, I was desperate to be successful as a manager and I had 11 years at Everton where we said we'd, I wouldn't say we'd hit the glass ceiling, but we were finding it really difficult to break into the top four, the competition and the money that was required.
But my biggest regret was I was so close to Bill Kenwright, the owner at Everton, and I couldn't tell him. And it was really bad that I couldn't tell him because I was so close to Bill, but I couldn't break my word. Sir Alex said he didn't want me to tell it, so I couldn't tell MD about my wife. So I jumped back in the car, drove back to the shopping mall, shopping centre, got the wife, put her in the car, and I said, I'm the new manager of Man United, and she was like, here you go, piss off, you're talking rubbish, you know.
So that was it, and that was how it went. You were coming to the end of your contract with Everton at the time. What was your plan? You hadn't signed a contract. So you must have been thinking... I have to say is I had been... I think my plan was probably to stay at Everton. We just hadn't got it done for different reasons. I was wanting to see how it was going. But... But I have to say, I'd met a couple of other clubs. I'd met a couple of really big clubs who'd approached me and phoned me and spoke to me.
You know, what was I doing? Would I be interested? The truth is, I don't think I'd have left for any of them because Everton had been so good to me. But I was also wary about overstaying your welcome at Everton. You know, sometimes just in management, supporters want change. They want to try something different and I get it. I'm a huge football supporter, you know. If I wasn't managing, I'd be watching football and I'd be, you know, probably talking about it like everybody else does.
But I, you know, it came up. I've got a chance to manage. It's probably the biggest club in the world. I'm following a club who always give their managers time. They gave Sir Alex time. And also that their values were, you know, they played young players, Man United. Man United. I always thought Man United never went out and tried to buy the best on the market. They never went to the designer shop to buy the best thing in the designer shop. They bought correctly.
They bought young players. You look at the players they had, which they come through from Bex and the Nevels and all the other ones who came through. They always had something, a bit of style about them. They never went out to get the best overseas manager in the world. They picked which fitted their model. So I actually felt when Sir Alex offered me the job and Manchester United were giving me the job, I felt they thought I must have been the best choice for the job at that time.
And they saw that. And also maybe not similar, but similar in a way that maybe there was a similar background, a similar upbringing, a similar route maybe to get to the point. So I trusted Manchester United. I really did. I trusted them because of what they stood for as a football club. You know, many times when you're successful as you were at Everton, you're given big opportunities. It's the same in business. People come to me and give me these huge opportunities.
And sometimes like the bright lights of the opportunity have often caused me to make a wrong decision or not to take, you know, take the right amount of due diligence, as you described there, like not really looking into the details because it's such a big thing that you almost can't say no to it. You said there that you wish you'd looked a little bit closer at the details. What do you mean by that? Well, I'll tell you who told me was Howard Wilkinson.
He said to me down the line, I wish you'd told me before, he says, all the managers who have had a dynasty, so when you look at it, I think it was Brian Clough was one of them. I think the other one was Sir Bobby Robson. All the managers who had the real dynasty, I'm trying to think of the United manager as well, Don Ravey maybe as well, I think it was, Anybody who followed them never worked. Now, I never even thought for a minute because I thought to myself, no, I'll come in and... And I actually was thinking, I'm not changing...
I'm going to try not to change much with ceramics. Of course I have to change it. It's not ceramics, it's me, and I have to do it my way, and I have to try and do it a little bit. But ultimately, I was going to keep it going. But then when I look back at the things that I heard, I thought, my goodness, if I'd looked a bit closer. And maybe, even now, I'm a bit older now than I was when I got the job. Maybe, maybe... Maybe even I needed even more experience than maybe even I had at that point.
Maybe I would be more ready at this period in my career than I was even, say, no, I don't know what it was, eight or nine years ago, whenever it was. So if they called you now? Well, no, they've got a really good manager, I think. And I think the thing about Manchester United, Manchester United have chosen incredibly good managers. Yeah. Probably some of the best managers. Yeah. Some of the best managers you could ever imagine have been at Manchester United.
You know, sometimes you've got to say, you know, if you're quite bright, I'm sure you are with the business you're working, it's not always the boss's fault that this doesn't go right. So, look, I took over at a difficult time, you know, it was quite a few senior players probably coming to near the end of their time. But I also have to say I was really proud that I took over the Champions England when that was the time. And that was, I'm saying, what a chance I've got, you know, maybe the opportunity to win trophies, the opportunity to be successful.
And it was the thing I was probably missing from my time at Everton that I wasn't quite getting close enough to winning trophies. Would you, would you, Eric Ten Hag aside, I think he's great. I think we both agree there. But would you ever be open to coming back to Manchester United in the future if they'd asked? Well, I don't think it would ever be, it would ever be in a role as a manager, that's for sure. So that, my time's gone. But, you know, if ever...
I always love to be involved in football. And hopefully somewhere along the line, someone will want to use my experience when my time's up with being a football manager. But Manchester United is a great experience. And I found it difficult to sort of have something which could sort of... I don't know how I would sort of put over what it meant and the only way I could put it out is I think when you manage Man United it's like living in the penthouse and looking out you know and until you've had the penthouse and you're looking out and you're above everybody and you're looking over you see the view much better and for me they were the penthouse One of the big things that did change at Manchester United, and I only know this because I had a season ticket, the ladies and the men that serve you the food in like the hospitality suite or whatever, they always have a great relationship with them.
And they would tell me things about how the club was, maybe before I could, I had enough money to buy a season ticket. One of the things they always said was the role that David Gill had on the club as well. People don't think, understand that enough, but David Gill was the CEO of the club. And I mean, I've seen in my own businesses when the CEO, me, was removed, how much, it was a completely different place. And people don't understand that because as fans, we look at the manager and think, ah, but if the managers in my business...
are very, very, very important. But the person above them that has the most power and the most control and the most sway is the CEO. Now that changed and the wonderful people at Manchester United would tell me that, well, when David Gill was here, he knew all of our names. And that really struck me that he knew all of our names. He knew all of our birthdays. We used to see him. Now we don't see Ed Woodward anymore. We don't see the chief executives anymore.
They don't know our names. That's a real sign of a cultural change. Definitely. Just think of the values that that is. Yeah. The values of the CEO sending you a birthday card or doing that. And I mean, I would be incredibly complimentary about Sir Alex. Sir Alex would phone up managers who'd lost a job or managers who'd been successful. He phoned me up when we were doing very well at West Ham six months ago, whenever it was. they were always correct.
And when you think of values of what it means to be at the top and what the small things which matter, those things really matter. But for me, I was taking over the club. I'd lost David Gill, who I knew very well from different things and working with him at UEFA and different things as well. And he was a huge, huge miss... But that wasn't to say that the new CEO wasn't, he was to be given every chance and I wanted to help him and he wanted to help me.
Ultimately, it didn't work that way. You said you trusted the club to give you long enough. Do you feel like that trust was let down? How do you feel about that? Yeah, I do a bit because I feel that, you know, I think that, If you're putting in a new manager, you're hoping that you're going to give them... Look, I left a very stable job and a very good environment to come and do it. And obviously, I think when we look back, you would say, hey, there was a huge change going to have to take place at Manchester United after Sir Alex.
And maybe, ideally, I think we were going to try and make it seamless where there wasn't going to be too big a change. There was a lot of players changing, getting to an age where they were having to move on. There was actually a big squad of players who had been incredibly loyal to Sir Alex and suddenly they've got new managers coming in the door, maybe not playing them as much, so they don't have quite the same sort of closeness to them and still building up relationship.
So I think there was a lot of that and it made it difficult. But you know, the thing I look back at business in, you're a very successful businessman, I always think you have to give bad news well. because you're the boss and you run a really big business like Manchester United did. And I think if you've got any class or any style, it's good when you get offered the job and then you give them and you give them all the, and you talk about all the stuff.
But I think when you're having to give bad news out, I think giving bad news has to be done in a good way as well. And I felt the way that I was told at the time at Manchester United wasn't done as well as it should have been done. The way that you were told you weren't going to be manager? Yes, you know, there was ways it could have been done better and it could be made a lot easier than what it was. Now, I've heard this from former players. I've heard former players tell me that they were really disappointed by how the club, specifically Edward Wood, gave them their send off.
I think it was Rio that said to me that like, just came into the dressing room, tapped me on the shoulder and told me that this was my last game or that they were selling me or something. And that doesn't pay respect to... No, it doesn't. And I actually think that looking back now, hey, you think to yourself, hey, it's life, go on mate. You know, that's the way it is when you're in an industry or you do that. But I still think that... I think if you're the biggest, one of the biggest sport businesses in the world, if not the you would hope that you would do things correctly, like David Gill would speak and say hello to them, or like they would send a birthday card.
So the same should happen if you were telling somebody that you were stopping them or you were sacking them or you were getting rid of them. You would hope that they would do it the best way they could. How did you find out? Media. Oh, really? Media phoning me, yeah. Lost a game at Everton, actually. The media were saying, oh no, you're losing your job. And, you know, I tried to make contact and say, look, why don't we meet up? I think you're going to, but it didn't suit.
And before I knew they called me and the day after, and by this time, the whole world had known about it before I'd sort of got to know. Sometimes I think people want to get it done right, and I just didn't feel it was right. But anyway, from my point of view... I generally don't have any real, I don't have a gripe about it because the industry I'm in means that this can happen quite often and you don't get things done the way you want it and you have to live with it and that's the way it is.
§03Transcript — part 3
In the wake of that, what does it look like at home? This is probably one of the most interesting things that I personally pondered throughout that period as a Manchester United fan, which is when you go from the penthouse and then... the landlord evicts you from the penthouse after, I don't know, 10, 11 months at the club. The weight of Manchester United, you know, it's the most talked about club. It's the club that sells the headlines. It gets all the clicks.
So it must feel like everything is about you in the world of football. And it's like a very public, apparent failure at home. You've got wonderful wife, Pamela. You've got two kids. What's it like at home? I think personally, you're a little bit ashamed because you've not done well. You know, you've not done well for your family. So I think personally I felt I'd let them all down because, you know, I'd really worked. Like I said, you know, the...
Probably the hours and the work I'd put in as a young... I didn't believe I was ever going to be a coach, never mind a coach of Manchester United. But the hours of work I'd put in had got me to a level where I'd worked and I'd done an awful lot of hard work behind the scenes over the years. And then to lose it so quickly. So you get a job. And I said at that time, I had two or three really, really big clubs who were talking about me and speaking to me.
But when Sir Alex came and made me the offer, it was very hard to say no. and then for that to go very quickly. So it was a bit like getting to the top of Everest and then actually starting to decline very quickly. So from my point of view, it was hard going home. You know, it was difficult. But I've got to say, it's a bit like... And my mum used to just say, hey, whatever happens, you just have to get up and get on with it. You know, you get on with it, you take it in the chin and you get away and, you know, sort of sticks and stones.
Don't worry too much about it. But you're right. When you're manager of Manchester United, you're talked about in every continent, every country. You'll either be in the front or the back page, just one of the papers. So, but that's also the privilege of being a manager of Manchester United as well. What's the, what's the toll of that? If you were to warn me about the toll. I think the toll for someone who cares deeply about their profession and wants to be successful and wants to do well, the toll for me personally at the time felt big.
It really did. And it probably took me a wee bit to get back on the road a little bit without thinking about it. After I lost the job, I said, well, I'm going to have to go and try and reinvent, find out more new things. Keep current. Where can I go to find out what's going on? You know, and I obviously couldn't go back to Old Trafford to watch a game, or I couldn't really go back to Goodison and watch a game. So it made it quite difficult. But I found myself doing quite a bit of work for UEFA.
I'd done all the Champions League games, which was a really good day. And I spoke in all the pro-licensed courses for the coaches, which kept me current and having to keep up to date with things. So those type of things kept my education and kept my knowledge and kept me going a bit. But I still think that when you've been at one of the big clubs, it's always a miss because you realise the level they're at. You said the toll is big. In a very practical, real sense, what does that mean?
Yeah. Is it sleepless nights? Is it anxiety? Yeah, I'm someone who sleeps really well, to be honest. But I do think that... it's very difficult when you, when you lose your job in, in our business, you know, you're, you've talked about a lot, so you have to accept it. And I'm, I'm part of it. You will be as well. Or if things go wrong or any of your businesses fail, you'll be, you'll be current. No, people will have criticism, but I think if you're going to go into football management, then you have to find a way of saying how do I deal with it?
How am I coping with it? What's my mechanism? Uh, I remember thinking, when things weren't going so well at Manchester United, you know, I'd be driving into training. So I couldn't put on talk sport. I couldn't put on... Radio 2, I couldn't put, they were talking. So I thought, I'll put on whatever music it was. And they come on the news and they were talking about me on that news as well. I thought, oh my goodness, is this ever going to end? Is there a channel that isn't talking about Manchester United in some way?
But that was because it was getting closer to probably when I wasn't doing so well and there was a lot of talk about it. But I think you just have to find a way of shutting yourself off from it the best you can. But the world we're in now for young coaches of social media, if that's what your world is or how you present yourself, it's much different now. And in days gone by, in the early days at Preston, I'd look at the newspaper and there'd be a letter page and there'd be four or five supporters saying, why is Moyes not playing him?
You know, and what's he doing? And that used to be where the criticism was mainly coming from. As you well know, now there's a world of it outside. I am, I got to play at the London Stadium, Soccer Aid. It's called London Stadium, isn't it? Yeah, it's called London Stadium. I had some chat to Karen Brady once in a while, I'm seeing her soon. And I met someone while I was at the Soccer Aid experience who happens to be a family member of a player, a big Premier League player, who has taken more abuse than any other player, maybe over the last year.
And I met a family member and I got a chat to them. And they told me about the toll it's taken on the whole family. And you never think about that. But that was actually one of the most important things I think I experienced was hearing from someone's younger sister that watching their older brother be abused, how horrific it is. She was almost in tears. Because, you know, if you and my dad and I watched that happen to you. Yeah. Well, I have to say, you know, and it's like, I don't think it was, only a week after I lost the Man United job, my dad had a heart attack.
Yeah, but it was a triple bypass. So I'm not saying it was because of when I left Manchester United, but that was the case. And hey, who knows? Who knows? If it would end, we don't really think that was the reason behind it. We think it was just coming on. So there is tolls we get taken in families. Of course there is. But thankfully, my dad's doing well and still going well just now. Something we don't think about. You know, people will say to you and people like you and players, they'll say, well, you pay loads of money, so behave yourself.
Just deal with it. Yeah, yeah. But that's... But then the kids aren't. There is part of it. And actually, I do think many, many times I think myself is, you know, do people understand that we've got a family? You know, I made this the other day. I was saying to a friend, I was saying this, As a manager, I think as you get older, you... No, in business, you get older, you think you get more experienced and you're, you know, doesn't make it any better.
When I was a young manager, if I lost the game, I would come home, go straight to my bed, pull the curtains and not wake up to Sunday morning. No, try and... And I might not sleep. I just didn't really want any. I didn't have any... I didn't really talk with my wife too much. I didn't really talk with my kids. I wasn't unpleasant. I just wanted to be on my own. Done that. The opposite then was if you won on a Saturday... I'd come home and say, come on, let's get ready.
Let's nip up to the restaurant and we'll get a bit of dinner and a couple of glasses of wine. And I used to always call it the Saturday night feeling. I'm desperate to get that Saturday night feeling. I'm desperate to have that feeling when you've won on a Saturday, knowing that mainly on the Sunday you're picking up the newspapers and the newspapers are saying you've won and you're going well. But... And I thought maybe by the time I get to the age in over a thousand games now, I'd be saying to myself, this is going to feel much easier.
Not at all. Just as bad. I'm not saying I'm going home every night, I lose now and pulling the curtains and going straight to bed, but it's to just sort of tell you how the game is. The game is actually nearly completely... how important the winning and going back to, I said, what the upbringing was where find a way of winning, win means that I have more good Saturday night feelings than I do going home and pulling the curtains and going straight to bed.
Yeah, I don't think about that. You know, when you said something a second ago, which is... you'd reached what I consider to be the very top of the game, managing Everton, because I think about how many tens of thousands of managers there are, coaches out there that are on the Sunday League pitches and all around the country that are aspiring to manage in the Premier League. It's insane. It's an insane, insane achievement. You managed at Everton.
You went to Manchester United. It didn't go well. In that period after, even though you were at the very top of the game, did you doubt yourself? in a post-Manchester United? By my pause might make you think, yes, but I didn't doubt that I was actually, I felt that I could do the job. I could be good at it. I felt as if I could, my work on the grass was good enough to... for where I had been, I had success the years before, so I was always trying to say, it didn't go quite well this 10 months, why did it not go well?
Was it how I managed? Was it how I coached? Was it, maybe I didn't have the right players? I had to try and look to see what there is. But the other part of the 10 or 11 years, I'd seen some great players, I'd been in FA Cup finals, I'd... I'd got to qualifying as a European competition with Everton. We'd qualify for the Champions League one year. So I was thinking as well, was I going to say that was all no good then the years we'd done it? So I think once I put it in perspective, then I said, no, I'm not doubting it.
But what I do think is, I think most days you have to get up and be ready to sort of challenge yourself every day. I don't think you can get out of bed every morning and think, hey, this is fine. You know, I'm doing okay here. I think every day you're sort of getting up and saying, how am I going to try and be better? How can I make people better? How can I make a difference today with what I've got? Paranoid almost. Yeah, near enough to an extent where you're saying, I can't.
No, you folks say, do you bring your work home? I really think if you're in the boss, if you're the boss, you're always bringing your work home. Because you're not just putting your head off and saying, I'm leaving that in the office and I'll pick it up in the morning. I think very rarely are you doing that. I think that's just life if you're a CEO or a boss. I very much agree. I very much agree with the idea of taking the work home. And also when things don't go wrong, in hindsight, everybody's quick to diagnose why it didn't go wrong.
Has the subsequent 10 years where everyone has failed at Manchester United felt good? Because everyone has failed. Jose's failed. Van Gaal went there. You went there. I'm missing someone. I think I'm missing someone. I mean, Karen Cadistin- Oli was in it. Oli, yeah. Oli was in. He failed as well. So that's, you know, five or six great, great managers who- who couldn't make it work at Manchester United for whatever reason. So I think time has almost been good to you in terms of the story of your time.
Look, I get huge respect for Jose Mourinho, huge respect for Louis van Gaal. You know, all he was new and is one of Manchester United's own, so he's always going to be given every opportunity to try and make it work as well. So I think there's been some great managers going into Manchester United... I think the biggest problem for Manchester United is Manchester City. I'm a Manchester United fan, season ticket holder. How, from your experience, do we get things back to how they were?
I think you'll need to... probably get rid of Pep somehow from my city. I think that's my way out. I think Pep is, I think there is some managers. But you must have an unbelievable perspective, better than me, because you knew Fergie, you knew the club, everything, you've been inside it. What do we need to do to get back to... I think Manchester United had different principles than most of the other Cubs. Looked at their youth a lot. Didn't always sign maybe the, as I said before, maybe the top diamond.
They always sort of picked and picked out good players who improved. And now and again went and bought a Cantona every so often. Van Nistelrooy or Van Persie at different times, you know. So at different times, they bought really good players at good times. This is actually a really good point because we've also bought some world-class players and they've all failed. Yeah, so there is something about Manchester United, they had their own way, but because of the competition which came in from Manchester City, Chelsea probably more in the earlier years.
I think those two clubs. I think Liverpool have had an incredible peer and got a really good manager as well and top players. I think over the year, Man Utd and Liverpool have always had a level of competition against each other. People say we've not spent money. In terms of players, we've spent shit loads of money. We spent almost a billion or whatever. And all these players, I remember the foul cows, the Demarek, because I get excited every time and I celebrate and I start, you know, blowing up my friends' WhatsApp chats and saying, you're screwed, we're going to win the league.
And then every year the player fails and then the manager's sacked. So it feels like a bit of a... It's the expectation or the excitement on the new players coming in. I get this all the time and I say this quite a lot to people. I hear in media, you know, they're talking about, oh, you need to buy new players. No, we buy new players. And actually... I would really like football to be where money was not always going to be the key to it. We think the more players, the more money you spend means that you win the league or you're successful.
And look, I think it probably will prove that it is. But I'd rather see that sometimes that it's not that way. And I just do think that quite often, you know, not buying all the top players, it doesn't mean that you have to buy the top players. I think it's buying good players and people who've got good characters and people who are going to work hard for the team. And then they come into that culture, which makes one... Which makes the difference.
One plus one equal three, like Leicester that year. Yeah, Leicester and the year they had was probably what we're all hoping for, whether it be us and you're seeing other clubs. I mean, actually, Newcastle United, for example. Newcastle United bought a couple of, with respect, three or four English players last January, British players. Probably not necessarily on the radar of the biggest clubs in the country. And they've turned round and they've had a great, they've had incredible momentum from probably January last year, maybe just before January, and are keeping that momentum going.
And now they're bringing in, they're adding in the odd bigger star or the bigger player as they go along. But I thought their business at the start was very good. If I'm one of your players in your dressing room, to be a David Moyes player at West Ham, what would, from a character and a personality standpoint, your expectation be of me? so that I fit into the culture and I'm successful? I'd want you to be hardworking. I want you to be honest in your endeavour.
I'd want you to do your jobs, whatever you want. I want you to be a team player. Individuals are really important, and no more hugely important than we've just seen in the World Cup individuals. But I do think that... I think... To have a consistency about your team is you need to have a team. I think if you've got individuals, you might get inconsistency, but you might get some really good days and we get clubs who can afford to carry one or two individual players to go along.
But I think while you're trying to build, I think you have to start with a really solid base, good foundation, and then from that point you try and grow. Pamela, you met her at a disco. Yeah. Yeah. She was lucky. Yeah, so I keep telling her, but most people disagree. She's been through it all with you, you know, everything. She's followed you around for decades and supported you in many, many ways. And I've heard about the sort of dynamic in your relationship where she's been really, really supporting.
You kind of do a lot of it together. You're there for each other. Tell me in your own words what, like... What she means to you, I guess. Well, it's the sort of thing you ask that question, you'd probably get emotional if you start saying that. So I'm going to say that before I start. Look, my wife has been unbelievable towards me because I remember when we were young, I bet what we said is we didn't earn great money. I wasn't a hugely wealthy footballer when I was getting paid, but I wanted to play football.
would have taken a wage. So Pamela worked as well. And we had to work to pay the mortgage when we were together when we were there. So it was very much together at the start how we could sort of have a family, how we could work together. And I remember saying to her, I said, I might need to be a football coach. And I remember when we were caught and I said, look... I'll need to go to coaching courses. I might not be here. I'll need to, I want to try and go and see her.
It doesn't. Remember her saying, no problem, you go and do what you have to do. And if I wasn't given that freedom in the early years to say, I'm going coaching courses. I mean, I went out to see Ancelotti at AC Milan. I, I went to the World Cup and I have to say, you know, I remember I went to the World Cup and I didn't have lots of money at the time and we weren't skint, but we didn't have loads of... And the PFA helped fund me. So I think at the time the PFA helped fund me get to the World Cup to go and watch.
And I remember writing to... I wrote to about five or six countries and said, you know, could I come and watch your training? and none of them replied. The only country that replied was Scotland and Craig Brown was the manager. Now, I was a Scottish coach and worked at... And I was still young at the time and they invited me to come and watch training in Scotland. None of the other teams did. But my wife let me get away and get on with it and try and seek and find out what I needed to do, probably in the hope that...
somewhere after my football career was finished that I might have been able to do something else. But she was, she still has a great inspiration to me. And so are my kids. My kids are good kids and, you know, good family. And it's really important to me. What role has she played, Pamela, in the harder times in your career? You know, I think, I think, When you're a football manager, you're going to have hard times. So, undoubtedly. So, hard times being a football manager.
Hey, hard times sometimes mean you get sacked and you get some money for leaving the job. You can look at that and say, hey, he's okay with that. But it's not. You've got pride. You know, as I said to you, I was probably losing the job. I was more an embarrassment. I felt embarrassed. from my family really that you know they were getting talked about they were getting looked at you know people were shouting at you dad's lost his job or whatever it may be at that time so My wife's just always stood by me and really supported me whenever it comes to the games, probably knows when she should speak and when she shouldn't speak, when it's going well and when it's going badly.
And even that's a skill in itself because, you know, when you're in it, when you're the boss, there's quite often, with respect, your partner quite often could say the wrong thing at any minute and you go... No, you might be thinking, why are you not thinking about, no, you're in the wrong case. So I think it's really important that your partner understands exactly how you feel. Where do you think you'd be professionally without her? I couldn't imagine anything I couldn't imagine my life really without my wife and do you know something I'm not I'm 59 at the moment so I've only got a good bit to go and we've got a good bit to go and I want to look forward to the years we're latter years together where we can have more time together because being a football manager means that you're away just about every weekend.
So you're either away, staying in a hotel preparing for a game or you're, you know, you're with the team and actually the way football's gone, you're in every Sunday now, you could be in all the time. There's very little family time and actually it's one of the things I think people don't understand. Hey, by the way, it's a great job, really well-paid game. Everybody wants to be involved in, as you like to say, but it's incredibly time-consuming, you know, and it takes up so much of your time.
And if you... If you have a family, probably they're the ones who suffer most because they don't see you as much as what probably other families might do. If you work Monday, 9 till 5, you go home at the weekends at least, being a football manager the weekends, you don't. I'm trying to get a membership with a golf club at the moment, back in my home. I can't get in because... And they say, well, you know, you've got to play with... You've got to play with members, and you've got to play with friends to get in.
I'm saying, I've got no friends. In the business we're in, it's really hard to have lots of friends outside of our industry. The reason why is because there's social time when folk are saying, hey, we're going out Friday night, we're going out Saturday night. You come in with us? No, I'm in the hotel. We've got a game tomorrow. We can't do that. Oh, well, you go out Saturday night? Yeah. But I lose, obviously I'm not going out with them if I'm going to lose Saturday night.
So lots of reasons why being a football manager is a great job, but it's also got lots of anti-social behaviour things because of how the job works. Earlier you said that you haven't been historically so good, especially when you were younger at giving praise. I can relate. One of the things that men are particularly bad at is letting, and I'm speaking about myself here, is letting their significant other know how much they appreciate them. I think women are usually better at kind of that affection and saying the kind words and stuff.
And as men, I know this for myself, I don't think my partner actually has a clue how much she means to me and how much she's been there for me in the hardest times. And just her presence sometimes when she says nothing in the hard moments, how that changes my state. If Pamela is watching this, What are the words you wish you could tell her that maybe you haven't told her? She would probably know that I love her. Of course she would. I would hope she would.
But more importantly, I miss her because I'm in London a lot of the time. She's up north. She's caring for her mum a lot at the moment. I just really, over the time, she's been great. We've had great times together. But I always want to say, I think my best times in football, I hope are still to come, but hopefully our best times in a couple are still to come as well. David, thank you. Thank you for lots of inspiration over the many, many, many years and lots of good memories in football.
You've been an incredible manager of all the clubs you've been at, in my view. And I do wish that Manchester United had given you more of a chance because I just generally believe everything you say about the importance of... when you come into a new system or organisation, needing that time to understand and make it your own. So even as a Manchester United fan, I was always, I'm always really annoyed at how quickly we've moved on with our managers before giving them a chance because they're all objectively great managers and you certainly are as well.
And it's just an honour to meet you because, you know, I've watched you on the screens for decades. So thank you. We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest. And the question left for you is, what is the biggest public misconception about something that has happened in your life? After thinking about it, I felt there was a few untruths at the end when I lost my job at Manchester United, actually.
And I found it very difficult to correct them. I felt that they had been written, so it was very difficult to correct them. Which they weren't right. And from that point of view, I couldn't do anything about it. And I found that, actually... That's probably one of the biggest difficulties because you try, you want to say, well, here, I'll explain why I made this decision. I'll explain why I chose to do that. But really, once the headline's there, that's the only thing that matters.
You've got to give me one. Yeah, I'm trying to think of one. That's what I'm trying to think. I've got this one, but I don't want to give the players name. That's fine. So, I mean, it was actually... So, they said that Manchester United had banned chips on a Friday. Rio had said in his book that I had banned chips. I read that. Yeah, I did. And it was actually something which... Probably most sports profession, you wouldn't really have chips. But I understood Manchester United, Sir Alex, done a lot of things maybe slightly different.
And I totally respected that. And what happened is I remember it was one of my first games we were staying in the hotel and there was one player who was overweight, which I won't name. And I remember walking in and I was walking into the dining room and he had his dinner. And next to me, they had a side plate of chips. And that was my reason for, after that scene, that one player with the side portion chip, that was my reason for saying, there should be no chips on a Friday night.
And it was sort of written about that that was one of the reasons. But my reason was actually because one of the players who was actually at the time a bit overweight, I saw him with a side plate of chips, and that's when I used it or banned him, if you want to say that. Interesting. Thank you so much, David, for your time. No problem. Such an honour. Thank you so much.