United and more: Seven legends have their say

CHENNAI: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven! Manchester United fans counted as the young and old lined up for pictures with stars Peter Schmeichel, Nemanja Vidic, Mikael Silvestre, Louis Saha, Quinton Fortune, Wes Brown and Ronny Johnsen.
Welcomed to Chennai as part of the grand finale of the United We Play season 2, a pan-India initiative with Apollo Tyres, the ‘legends’ sat down with select media to express their views.Needless to say, banter and laughter followed… and some serious talk.
Excerpts:
ON 51 GOALS CONCEDED:
Vidic: These stats are for teams fighting for relegation, not for Top-4. When we were playing, we had players running both ways, offensively and defensively, that’s the key. If you look at City, Liverpool they are conceding 21, 22 goals but they are playing offensive football. I think you need to sort that department out at United if you want to win trophies.
ON DAVID DE GEA:
Schmeichel: You won’t find me critical against De Gea. He is the first to win four Player of the season awards at United. For me, this year also. The thing about him, he is adaptable. I think the new manager will have a lot of ideas but there are a lot of other issues to be sorted out before that can happen - the changing of personnel, working on the culture of the dressing room, the playing comes next. The good thing is Erik Ten Hag has preparation time.
ON THE MAGUIRE PROBLEM:
Vidic: As a player, you have dips in form. One or two bad games, you lose confidence. But if it goes on, it is not good personally and also for the team. Football players are under constant pressure and especially Harry Maguire, because of the transfer money involved. Obviously, he was playing well at Leicester. But United overall has not been playing well this season so we cannot put everything on his shoulders. But sometimes, it's not too bad to take a break.
GIVING YOUTH A CHANCE:
Wes Brown: In Holland, they bring in a lot of young talent. Ten Hag will probably have that emphasis on youth, coming in from Ajax. I think mentally it helps for the youngsters at the academy because if you do the hard work and everybody is asking about you, you have the chance to play for the first team. I have experienced that. I think you have to earn it, still respect the system. Hopefully, the new manager brings that into play a little bit because we have a few good young players.
Saha: New scouts coming in as well so hopefully that changes the dynamics a little bit.
ON DEFENDER PROBLEMS AFTER VAR:
Fortune (laughing): I think a lot more people would have been offside (if there was no VAR)… I think defenders now put their hands behind their backs and that changes everything. It is unnatural because you are worried about the ball hitting your hands. You need your hands for everything, for balance.
Saha: Maybe as a central defender, you have more situations to defend. The wingers have that advantage because the full-backs have less possibility to block those crosses. So maybe this is why defending is such an issue at the moment. This World Cup, for example, all the Latin teams struggled. Because they had to tone down their style of defending.
ON WINTER WORLD CUP:
Schmeichel: The Premier League is very much about momentum. The period when the World Cup is being played is normally the most important period of a season. World Cup is a very compressed tournament but if you play well, you play a lot of games and you risk getting injured. it will play massively into the leagues. Conversely, I think actually the quality of the World Cup is going to be better because the players are coming in fresh.
ON THE 1999 CHAMPIONS LEAGUE WIN:
Johnsen: Many things came together that treble year. We lost to Dortmund in the semis in 97, but going into Europe you need experience of playing such games, as players, also as a club. Coming into United, it was really hard to go to the training sessions because of the level these (senior) guys had. That made us go all the way. Sometimes, games were easier than training. Also, that year we were pushed so hard from Arsenal, even in the FA Cup. Many times, we had to come from behind. If you see the teams in the Champions League, it’s very important to be pushed to the limit. If you won the league by a mile, and come into the Champions League, they are not really up there.
Saha: You see PSG, they win Ligue 1 so easily, they can’t compete in the Champions League.
Ronny: Yes. The final was the biggest game and we made a last-gasp comeback.
ON RONALDO’S APPROACH:
Saha: We had Ryan Giggs, Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes, Roy Keane and all those guys wanted wingers to defend in a certain way but Cristiano was a different animal. He had that kind of balance of respecting the structure but he knew if he played to his full potential, it would benefit the team. This mentality helped him maintain his improvement and that made me realise as a player, I had to look for myself as well. That’s the kind of selfishness a striker needs.
Fortune: Louis is very humble. He was an unbelievable player. It took me a couple of years to realise if he was right or left-footed.