It is the comeback Ruud van Nistelrooy was not expecting. When he left Manchester United, it had the air of cruelty. He was the favourite who fell from favour, the clinical striker who was clinically dispatched. He was the fourth big name in five years to experience Sir Alex Ferguson’s brutality. Like Jaap Stam, like David Beckham, like Roy Keane, he felt the force of Ferguson’s wrath. No sentimentality was afforded because of his service to United. One by one, they were gone.
Eighteen years later, Van Nistelrooy is back. The United goals he used to celebrate were his own, the 150 he scored for the club in five seasons of devastating ruthlessness. Those he enjoyed on Wednesday were scored by Casemiro, Alejandro Garnacho and Bruno Fernandes. He has traded the penalty area for the technical area. A seal of approval for the interim manager came from Ferguson.
“He wished me luck before the game,” said Van Nistelrooy. “It’s always great to speak to him.” That may be a rewriting of history – in his autobiography, Ferguson said the striker swore at him when he discovered he was not being brought on in the 2006 League Cup final – but there has been a rapprochement. And if it came with an apology from the Dutchman – Ferguson, after all, rarely admitted he was in the wrong – it also occurred by the time the Scot had been vindicated. Ferguson’s success came in part because he was often right and, when Van Nistelrooy and Cristiano Ronaldo clashed at times during the 2005-06 season, he preferred the younger player.
He reconfigured his team around the emerging talents of Wayne Rooney and Ronaldo, selecting the more selfless Louis Saha ahead of Van Nistelrooy for the League Cup final win over Wigan. Van Nistelrooy was the best pure goalscorer of the Ferguson years. Ronaldo became the highest goalscorer in footballing history. Ferguson’s last great team at United was powered by Ronaldo.
The past is another country at Old Trafford and yet a constant in conversations. Van Nistelrooy’s temporary stint in charge, following Erik ten Hag’s sacking, is another reminder of more glorious times. His United scored five goals in his first game in charge, but so did Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s; Van Nistelrooy was planning to text an old teammate about that. It is Chelsea on Sunday, a game in which both Solskjaer, with a 2-0 win, and Michael Carrick, with a 1-1 draw, flourished as caretaker managers.
Van Nistelrooy, denied a fond send-off as a player, was saluted by the Stretford End on Wednesday, the old chants of “Ruud” brought back. This was scarcely what he was envisaging when he was sold for £10.3m, the cut-price fee seeming a sense of Ferguson’s desperation to be rid of him. “At the time I wasn’t thinking that to manage,” Van Nistelrooy said. “I Ieft in 2006, oh my God, what a long time ago, to Real Madrid.” He promptly became the top scorer in La Liga. It was only after retiring that he thought about coaching.
Now he has been welcomed back into the United family. “It was special to come back to the club and city I liked and loved so much and still do, I enjoy it and I enjoy being around Manchester and working with the players and staff here,” he said.
For draw of United brought him back to a club who only won four times under Erik ten Hag this season. He connected, he said, with his fellow Dutchman over a love for the club. His initial appeal to his players was rooted in nostalgia yet given his charisma, eloquence and stature, it worked. Leicester were beaten 5-2. “My team talk, I’m standing in front of the team, telling them about what Manchester United is about, what it is to play at Old Trafford, what songs are being sung by the fans and why,” he explained. “You try to transmit that lovely feeling of playing for this club. It’s a proud moment to do that.”
The problem, of course, is that reminders of what United was abound. They are invoked by a host of Van Nistelrooy’s old teammates in punditry that can range from the eloquent to the incoherent. They seemed the basis of Solskjaer’s management. In their different ways, they all want to recreate the all-conquering United of the Ferguson era. But none of his former players have found the formula to recreate his managerial magic. The club he transformed has now become a byword for expensive underachievement. United are 14th in the Premier League and 21st in the Europa League while Van Nistelrooy is the ninth man to take charge of United since Ferguson retired and Ruben Amorim will soon become the 10th. United won 13 league titles under Ferguson and finished 31 points off the pace last season.
Perhaps a man who was only 28 when the managerial knight bowed out after 1500 games at the helm will represent the break with the past. Van Nistelrooy is likely to have three more games in charge but hopes to be part of the future.
“I want to help,” he said. “I want to do everything I can in my abilities to fight for this club. The club’s in a difficult situation and it’s not where we all want it to be. I’m very motivated to stay here and help the club [go] forward, that’s my absolute goal.” And, more than most, Van Nistelrooy knows about goals.