admin Hardly any of the current Man United players are impolite and there has been a mentality shift under Erik ten Hag. It was different before he arrived.
The Hawthorns, eight days before Christmas, 2016. Manchester United have just won to a soundtrack of Five Cantonas and their in-form defender stops in the mixed zone.
He had led United out for their warm-up and was the first to consult Jose Mourinho after Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s second goal.
“It looks like you’re one of the manager’s leaders out there?”
The response is so monosyllabic it is not even worth transcribing. It did not make the embargoed copy and the audio is entombed in a dictaphone gathering dust somewhere.
Five months later, it became clear why Phil Jones was so tough. Following United’s lethargic performance in a 2-0 defeat by Arsenal in May 2017, a correspondent wrote that Jones “looked as awkward as Diane Abbott during the interview”.
TheLabor MP from Hackney North and Stoke Newington appeared on Nick Ferrari’s LBC show this week and said it would cost £300,000 to recruit 10,000 police officers. It wasn’t so much a car accident as it was a collision.Some may laugh at the negligence of comparing Jones to Mrs. Abbott, others may not.
It’s not a parallel you would draw now. Ms Abbott was the victim of severe abuse and was suspended from the Labor Party in April after bluntly implying that Jews faced similar prejudices against “redheads”.
Jones complained about the comment to a United spokesman, who promised me I would not be given access to the club’s upcoming pre-season tour. This was nipped in the bud when the club’s then communications director discovered the meanness.
Days after Jones alerted United media staff, he went out in open formation to a colleague to speak out against the joke.
Hopefully Jones hasn’t consistently pointed out the bad press over his last six years at United.
In a harsh interview with Jonathan Northcroft, Jones recalls the day he was abused by a worker while walking through Hale with his two daughters, one in a stroller and the other just three years old. It takes a special life to sink so low.
Some still confuse constructive criticism with outright abuse. Careful reporting is expected from the club’s dedicated correspondents, and the focus is on the comments that fans regularly echo.
I traced his U21 performances in the second half of the 2015–16 season with Jones. These newsrooms enjoyed reasonable attendance, but the coverage of the Manchester Evening News was and is the most comprehensive.
Jones stopped playing for the first team after 2 January and his U21 appearances were at Old Trafford, so he was guaranteed more attention than at Leigh Sports Village.
In these performances, Jones was often overshadowed by Axel Tuanzebe, RoShaun Williams and Paddy McNair.
After a draw with Chelsea, 19-year-old visiting striker Kasey Palmer posted a clip on Instagram comparing himself to Jones. Nobody could credibly write about Jones, who hadn’t been seen in the first team for three months.
Jones faltered in reserve in a season that saw Daley Blind start 49 times midway through the first half. In February, Jones posted his short-lived “PJ4” logo to his Instagram page in a photo commemorating the Munich plane crash.He hardly used social media.
Playing for United is an occupational hazard and players need a thick skin. Another physical issue was Jones’s undoing – his right knee – but he was too thin-skinned to live up to those infamous billings by Sirs Bobby Charlton and Alex Ferguson.
And Jones complained again. When Raphael Varane was finalising his transfer to United in August 2021, he requested the number four that Jones had not donned in 19 months. Jones refused, so Varane opted for the ’19’ he first received at Real Madrid.
A contact informed me about the matter, I informed the desk and the story was published shortly after Varane was paraded on the Old Trafford turf. Varane had signed and United then thrashed Leeds 5-1 on the opening day. Happy days for United. Unhappy for Jones.
A message dropped from a press officer that evening, saying Jones denied that he had denied Varane the number four. I stood by the story. The press officer reiterated Jones’s stance. I reiterated mine.
Then the main press officer – the one who took umbrage on Jones’s behalf four years earlier – was notified and online on WhatsApp to get in touch. Again, I stood by the line. She too was more intent on enjoying her Saturday evening and merely stressed Jones was unhappy about it.
That appeared to be the end of the matter until Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s Zoom call the following Friday. Those virtual calls were a chore. You were on mute and had to hit the ‘raised hand’ icon to highlight your interest in asking a question. When it was your turn, you were unmuted.
My hand stayed ‘up’ but I also stayed muted. The same press officer who had complained on Jones’s behalf had their finger on the button. Other colleagues on the call noticed I had been overlooked and messaged, wondering why.
The notion that there is ever an agenda against a player is laughable. This correspondent wrote effusively about Jones’s form under Mourinho and at the start of Solskjaer’s reign – both after the Abbott affair.
Jones got the highest rating on his comeback appearance against Wolves in January 2022 – months after the Zoom malarkey. That Jones had an axe to grind with me did not prompt me to draw my sword.
The same applies to the player whose relative still has a tendency to send barely intelligible email ramblings at silly o’clock. And the player who started a mixed zone exchange with “no f—–g chance” and ended it with “you seem like a nice guy”.
The irony is yours truly has since interviewed the player of the aforementioned relative and he was completely forthcoming.
One United player has blocked me on Twitter and the sibling representative of another did on the same platform. The United complainants have been, by and large, British and/or academy graduates. Overseas players find it easier to zone out as English is not their mother tongue and the press is not as close to home.
David de Gea had to develop the skin of a rhinoceros in his first six months at United and is as unflappable as his demeanour. The most player-specific correspondence I used to get was from Swedish or Scandinavian readers appalled by my assessments of Victor Lindelof, yet Lindelof would not recognise me if I doorstepped him.
Every United player has been praised and criticised under my byline. Reporters are not club mouthpieces and there is no place for the use of “we” in questions at a press conference. Journalism is an impartial industry that separates qualified journalists from what Roy Keane might call the bluffers.
Access to the United players improved last season under new leadership in the communications department. Erik ten Hag also stressed he wanted the players to be more accountable in dealing with opprobrium.
Bruno Fernandes is one of United’s best players and certainly their best talker. Luke Shaw is not far behind. Shaw has copped more flak than any other United player over the last decade yet he has never once complained about poor press and is a genuinely likeable lad. Diogo Dalot is articulate, Lisandro Martinez is charming, Casemiro has a handshake as tight as a vice and Tom Heaton is gregarious. Hardly any of the players are outright impolite.
Such interactions were overdue after communication through a laptop lens and the occasional phoner during the Covid-19 pandemic. Solskjaer misinterpreted a question I asked on the pre-match press conference five days after the 5-0 annihilation by Liverpool. He still had a bee in his bonnet about it on the post-match call at Tottenham the next day and aimed a “dig” – verbatim – at me.
Three days later, Solskjaer was his old self, answering my question cheerfully (Cristiano Ronaldo’s added-time volley secured a point at Atalanta). It was the only flicker of insecurity he ever displayed.
In the Elton John Stand at Vicarage Road, Solskjaer was barely still standing. Watford had battered United 4-1 and Solskjaer had managed United for the last time. He was specifically booed by away-dayers, mobiles were blaring and we could only hear him on Zoom. Another manager would have skipped the debrief, citing a technical issue. Solskjaer didn’t.
“You don’t need to see me, I think,” he quipped.
