Rio Ferdinand: Man Utd must ‘trust in the process’ with new boss like Arsenal have done with Arteta

Former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand has told us the Red Devils would do well to follow the example set by Arsenal and Mikel Arteta as they search for a new manager, stating the club must fully back their appointment next season and “trust in the process.”

United are currently on the lookout for a new manager to replace interim boss Ralf Rangnick this summer, with the likes of Erik ten Hag and Mauricio Pochettino reportedly being in the running for the job.

Ferdinand says that whoever United opt to bring in as Rangnick’s replacement, the club must ensure he is given time and their full support – like Arteta has been given at Arsenal, who now appear to be reaping the rewards under the Spaniard.

“Manchester United are obviously now looking for a new manager, and hopefully things (at the club) will change,” Ferdinand told us. “If you look at Arsenal, they have found the manager, they trust in him and they have allowed him to do some things where a lot of people have probably doubted it. (Such as) with the (Pierre-Emerick) Aubameyang situation, where people thought he’s a big player and you have to keep him… But now Arteta has done what he wanted and Arsenal are on a good run at the moment.

“You have to trust in the manager and trust in the process and fingers crossed Man United will do that. At the end of the day, when you are a professional you have to apply yourself right every single day and the culture, with the environment that you are in, has to be structured and put together for you to be the best you can be as an individual, but in our sport, as a collective as well. Up until over the last few years Man United has not been set up like that.”

Ferdinand added on United’s season: “You can’t lie, (they are just not good enough at the moment). You can’t try and sugar-coat it and dress it up as something that it isn’t. The league table doesn’t lie. The league table tells you where you’re at and Man United aren’t good enough at the moment, aren’t playing well enough, aren’t consistent enough. That is just a fact.”

Ferdinand went on to discuss his own time at Old Trafford, saying United got so used to winning that they barely celebrated their successes – though it was this attitude that drove them on to further glory.

“This may sound a bit arrogant, but you became accustomed to winning the Premier League,” he said. “Even our fanbase at the time didn’t really celebrate the way you should celebrate because they were used to winning. Teams would win the Carling Cup or the FA Cup or get promoted and they would do open-top bus tours around their city. We won the Champions League and the Premier League in 2008 and we got off the plane from Moscow and the manager said I’ll see you in pre-season guys. Where the hell was our open-bus tour? Are we not going to celebrate? It was crazy.

“It made us better though. If we had celebrated too much and overindulged for too long you forget about the next target. I became obsessed with what was next. We would win and even that night sometimes I would be speaking to the CEO asking him who the targets were to get in next season because I was like a fan. He would tell me to enjoy the moment, but I could only enjoy it once I knew that we would go on to win.

“I was almost in fear of dwelling too much. I was always thinking ‘what is the next target? We have to go again’. We were lucky enough to win back-to-back titles three times on the bounce and it gets harder each time because the target on your back gets bigger.

“I remember Ben Foster came to Man Utd, we won the Carling Cup on the Sunday, we had a Champions League game on the Wednesday, and in the changing room we were sitting there and Ben Foster said, ‘the Carling Cup is just sitting in the corner alone, no one is even looking at it’. We decided we were not going to have a crazy one because we had a game on Wednesday. We got straight on the train back up to Manchester, job done. It is hard to understand that when you’re new to that environment but to keep winning you have to be like that.”

Ferdinand also discussed his former United teammates, singling out Paul Scholes as the best trainer at the club and the best he played with.

“Scholesy was the best trainer, standard-wise. Every day he was always one of the top two or three trainers,” Ferdinand said. “Scholesy was the best player I shared a changing room with. Cristiano (Ronaldo) was the best player obviously, but I played right behind Scholesy so I would pass the ball to him. So for example, I would play the ball into him at 10/15 yards and I would shout to him ‘Giggsy/Becks/Cristiano’ or someone like that, and he wouldn’t even look, he would just take a touch or play it first time at 30 yards and it would bang.

“I loved it, it was what made him different. Playing close to him and seeing it first-hand set him apart from the rest for me. He wasn’t big, he wasn’t quick, he didn’t have any of the physicality of the other top players. If you saw him in Sainsbury’s you would never pick him out as a footballer, so it shows you how good he must have been.”

Ferdinand joined United from Leeds in 2002, when Arsenal were the reigning Premier League champions, and he admits he feared his new club might struggle to regain the trophy.

“The first Premier League that I won at Man United, I was 23/24 and I had been playing since I was 17, so for about six or seven years,” he said. “And I was feeling like I was never going to win it. Then I arrived at Man United and they had won loads before that, but they hadn’t won for two years, so I was thinking, ‘am I going to sign here and not win?’ So with the first win the relief was just ridiculous, it was a weight off my shoulders. Then we won quite a few times after that!

“But then with the Champions League, I got to semi-finals with Leeds, I got to the quarter-finals and the last 16 with Man United and I was thinking, ‘am I going to get my hands on this trophy?’ Once I got there, that was the pinnacle. It was the best feeling because you’re the best in the best tournament.”