Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread - Rio to Barca??
Retiring Chief Cout Mick Brown on manutd.com
Thursday, May 26, 2005
You must have clocked up a few air miles, what's the life of a scout like?
"And road miles! It's ok when everything's going well, but when people ask me what it's like I always ask them 'when your flight's delayed when you're going on your holidays, how do you feel?' You feel like a bag of rags. If you think of that happening to you three or four times a week sometimes, and over an 11 month period, it's not all a bed of roses. You fly to Paris and then your connection's cancelled to Germany, so you might have to hire a car to get there. It's just another form of pressure. I'm not complaining, it's just not as easy as some people think."
How has the scouting set-up changed in your time at Old Trafford?
"There's always been a scouting situation in place, but it's ongoing - it's evolving all the time. We've added people to it across Europe who can give us information, both at Academy and professional level. We scout now at under-14's, 15's, 16's tournaments and we have people on the ground at those so we know who the players are. There's an awful lot of work to be done."
Have you come across many characters like Sir Alex?
"I came out of an era where there were a lot of characters. The beauty of it was that they weren't all the same. You've got your Malcolm Allisons, for instance, your Shanklys, your Fagans and people like that. So you've got your flamboyant ones and your dictatorial ones if you will. Some of the coaches I've been very, very proud to coach with. I coached in an era when Don Howe was coach of Arsenal and England and you could pit your wits against people like that every week. Top class people. But have there been any like Alec? No, he's a one-off as all the others were."
What's he like to work with?
"I've had nothing but pleasurable experiences with him. From day one, he's let me get on with the job. I don't bother him unless I have to. I'll go knocking on his door but I'll get an answer within 30 seconds sometimes, then I'll go out of the door and maybe not speak to him for a while. If he comes and wants information then he'll expect it, and hopefully we provide it for him. Generally speaking, he needs people about him who can do their job when he's not there. So I would hope that that's been the situation. If it hasn't, he hasn't bothered to tell me!"
Does it make you proud when your recommendations become successful?
"Yes, it's a very worrying thing when you're spending somebody else's money. It's not something that I find easy. If I'm recommending somebody I'm like 'if that was my money would I be paying it?' I know in football sometimes you have to pay above the going rate for the player, and that's particularly so with Manchester United. Given that, it's not something you do easily."
How does the pressure of playing for United affect players?
"At Manchester United you're always going to get stick, no matter who you are and where you are. The one thing that goes with the territory is stick. You'll get some people who can handle all this, and some people who melt. It affects their performance and they just can't perform once they cross that white line. There have been many, many examples of that in the past."
Does that affect the way you look at targets?
"Yes, very much so. When you've looked at how good a player is and decided if he fits the profile you want, you then start the other side - what sort of character are we looking at here. Will he be able to handle everything and what sort of baggage comes with him."
Do you have any regrets over missed targets?
"I put as much time in on Ronaldinho as I did on Gabriel Heinze. The outcome of it was that he was the one player we thought could affect Manchester United more than any other. He was the icing on the cake that we needed at that particular time. Having made those recommendations, other members of staff went out and saw him and concurred with that opinion. There was a number of cases like that at the time where you got the feeling that, no matter what we did, we weren't going to buy him."
Who can eventually replace Roy Keane?
"I think Steven Gerrard is a classic example of the type of person and the type of player you would like. But when you come back down to the odds on you being able to get him they're stacked against you. But never say never, because people said that about Rio Ferdinand. People said that about Alan Smith. I think gradually those doors are being battered down. So I wouldn't say it's not possible. It's very, very difficult. And the thing is, Roy Keane is Roy Keane. There is no other Roy Keane. Forget it. If you're going out looking for another Roy Keane, you ain't going to find one. They are getting less and less, those top-quality players. There have been one or two, but whether the club can go into that market at the moment I don't know, that's debatable. But we're in a period where we might have lost a couple of players because we couldn't enter that market. That's the way the world is."
Is that down to signing Wayne Rooney?
"Yes, but I don't think anybody's complaining about that now. He's top quality material."
How good can he become?
"Frightening, really. I think his fitness levels since he's been here and his desire have been absolutely fantastic. He's ending up with the man of the match award, and you don't know whether he's won it as your best striker, your best right-sided midfielder or your best right-back half the time! What he did against Arsenal was staggering, and he was still running Cole at the end of the game. There's not too many people who do that. He's a fantastic talent and with any sort of luck he's only going to get better. He's so strong with it too. He's a wonderful asset for Manchester United and, of course, England."
Who is the best player you've seen in your time here?
"Robson and Keane were my kind of player, but the most skilful player I ever had anything to do with was Arnold Muhren. He was a bit like Veron. He was slim, you thought you'd blow him over but you never saw anyone get the ball off him. He could run them round the ball, and he could thread a needle with his left foot. He had a wonderful dry sense of humour. And the wonderful thing about Arnold was that he had a magnificent career at Ipswich Town, came to Manchester United and then when he left here he went back to Holland, got into the Dutch national team and then captained them at 38 years of age. That's the best testimonial I could pay anyone."
Just how good was Veron?
"As a technician, he could do some things in training that I've never seen other players do. He could hit long distance balls, that were under him, with the outside of his foot and they would fade into the path of somebody that was 40 or 50 yards away. I don't know how he saw the passes, let alone delivered them. But there were others. David Beckham, people like that at that time were a joy to watch in training. Paul Scholes could play in a five-a-side with a blindfold on, he just knows where everything is. If he played centre-half he might struggle heading the ball but he would football his way out of trouble. He is what I'd call a proper footballer."