Mick Clegg spent 11 years as Power Development coach at Manchester United. He’s the man who helped Roy Keane recover from his knee injury. And he’s one of the reasons for the infamous Saipan fallout.
The Manchester United dressing room under Alex Ferguson was full of leaders and alpha-males.
Jaap Stam and Peter Schmeichel could both demand the respect of any dressing room in the world at the time. But it was an Irishman that controlled it all, according to Clegg.
Roy Keane was the captain and with that, came a higher level of respect and responsibility. With so many strong personalities and egos, maintaining harmony in the dressing room was the role of the captain.
Keane did that for years. But according to Clegg, the dressing room was ‘liberated’ when Keane eventually left the club, as fresh leaders emerged from their shell.
“There were new characters coming in and sometimes they need to express themselves.” Clegg told Off The Ball.
“Roy was the one who was controlling that. It wasn’t Alex Ferguson. Roy had a lot of control.”
“But then things start to move, more staff in, more players in, you know the size of the squad starts to increase. It makes it more difficult to hold all the bits.”
“The mixture in the pot goes a different colour.”
Clegg doesn’t feel as though Keane was a damaging presence - quite the opposite - but his leaving allowed players who would otherwise not stepped forward as leaders, to do so.
“I think Roy would still have done really well if he had stayed on there, just as Ryan Giggs did.”
“But then what happened was, people who wouldn’t normally have done - because of Roy being there - started to [express themselves.]”
“Watching Rio Ferdinand and Cristiano train together, it was incredible. When people started to see the possibilities, it was incredible.”
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