Former Manchester United assistant manager Mike Phelan speaks exclusively to Sky Sports; the 60-year-old worked under Sir Alex Ferguson, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Ragnick; Phelan gives his lowdown on Harry Maguire, Cristiano Ronaldo, Gary Neville and Erik ten Hag
"So when you challenge with Ronaldo and Rooney, they are pretty decent individuals in their own right. Yes, they have egos - but ultimately they want to succeed and they want the legacy."You have to be there for them, and that was easy for me. It's about relaying those messages to them: keep your head down, do your work, you're a good player - that's why you're there - and it will all come together.
"He's still playing international football, yes he's in Saudi Arabia, but he's still playing and scoring goals. He is doing all the things we knew he could do at Manchester United. "And this was a young kid, one who came from Portugal and was made there, and made that sacrifice to come away from that, where he was comfortable, to a club like Manchester United and learn everything from an English and British perspective.
"I got to my car, turned on my phone and I must have had 150 messages, lots of them repeated ones such as: 'Where are you? Get in touch!' These were from Ole, Sir Alex, from the news people. I'm thinking: 'I will take this a bit later'. "We tried to push it on and to Ole's credit, he was a good thinker. He allowed people to work - he was similar in his ideas to Sir Alex. It was quite refreshing.
"He was fantastic as a guy in the environment he was in before becoming manager - he does that director of football role really well, he was successful at that. Coming in as a manager, he had done that role before, but he was stepping into something turbulent. "They have spent a lot of money in the windows but he needs time, everyone needs time to put their mark on things. People forget that, but you have to win football matches.
"He came into the team, and when I became manager he was injured. He was playing tennis and broke his ankle, something like that. It didn't do me any favours as I had him down as a starting guy.
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