I had a few like Phil (Neville), who would do anything for the team. He would only think of the team. For the most part, if he were to play a limited part in the successful functioning of the side, he would find a way to be happy with that. In the end, though, Gary (Neville) came to talk to me, to see how I felt about Phil’s diminishing role. ‘I don’t know what to do, he’s such a great lad,’ I told Gary . ‘That’s the problem,’ Gary said. ‘He doesn’t want to come to you.’ Phil lacked Gary’s directness, you see. I invited Phil out to the house for a talk. He came with his wife Julie. At first I didn’t notice her in the car. ‘Cathy, go and bring Julie in,’ I said. But when Cathy got out there, Julie began crying. ‘We don’t want to leave Man United,’ she was saying. ‘We love being at the club.’ Cathy took her a cup of tea, but she wouldn’t come into the house. I think she was worried she might break down and embarrass her husband. My point to Phil was that I was doing him more harm than good with the way I was using him. He agreed. He told me he needed to move on. I left him to work out how he would approach that with his wife. When they had left, Cathy said: ‘You’re not going to let him go, are you? You can’t let people like that go.’ ‘Cathy,’ I said, ‘it’s for his own good. Do you not understand? It’s killing me more than it’s killing him.’ I let him go cheaply, for £3.6 million. He was worth double that, because he could play five positions for you – in either of the full-back positions or all across the midfield. He even played centre-half for Everton, when Phil Jagielka and Joseph Yobo were injured. Sir Alex in his biography... -NE
Posted on: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 09:44:02 +0000